Grace - Jesus Became Completely Unrighteous

"He [God] made Him [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" 2 Cor. 5:21.

I had a conversation with someone who insisted that we are not completely righteous. I suppose that the old covenant mentality kept them from believing what Paul insists upon again and again: we have been made complete and completely righteous in Christ.

But there is another side to such a non-belief in our complete righteousness: if we have not been made completely righteous in Christ, then He did not become completely unrighteous. This great exchange is vastly under-appreciated.

Perhaps the marvel of Christ's work is not so much that we've been made righteous, but rather the marvel is found in how He became utter sin and unrighteousness.

Consider the following quote:

"Notice that Paul does not say that God reconciled the world to Himself by Jesus becoming flesh. We are not reconciled by Christmas. God reconciled the world to Himself by Jesus becoming sin for us." ~Sinclair Ferguson

Blessings to you!

Grace=Peace,
Jeremy

Grace - God Himself nourishes the soul

Hi Everyone!

Below is an excerpt from A.W. Tozer and a very short remark by John Piippo, a pastor whose blog I follow.  John Piippo is also one of the people interviewed in "Finger of God".


Grace=Peace,


Jeremy

"Sound Bible exposition is an imperative must in the Church of the living God. Without it no church can be a New Testament church in any strict meaning of that term. But exposition may be carried on in such way as to leave the hearers devoid of any true spiritual nourishment whatever. For it is not mere words that nourish the soul, but God Himself, and unless and until the hearers find God in personal experience, they are not the better for having heard the truth. The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts." (A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, Kindle Locations 51-56)

Knowing Scripture is good. But Scripture's object is not Scripture. Scripture's object is God. Scripture, empowered by God's Spirit, points us to the abiding relationship with God. That's what we need.

Thank God for Scripture. But Scripture is not to be worshiped. Only God is.

-- John Piippo

Grace - Transfer of Trust

Hi Everyone,

Here's a short grace-nugget from Billy Graham's grandson:

"....the deepest slavery is self-dependence, self-reliance. When you live your life believing that everything (family, finances, relationships, career) depends primarily on you, you're enslaved to your strengths and weaknesses. You're trying to be your own savior. Freedom comes when we start trusting in God's abilities and wisdom instead of our own. Real life begins when we transfer our trust from our own efforts to the efforts of Christ". ~ Tullian Tchividjian

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

Grace - God Is What God Does

Grace - God Is What God Does

Below is an excerpt from an article by Bert White.  Enjoy!

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

"Jesus was above all things a revolutionary with a radical message. Most folks do not tend to see Jesus as an insurrectionist or a divine insurgent but make no mistake; His message was anything but tame.  ....Jesus makes an unmistakably clear connection with loving people and the coming of the Kingdom of God. That is because a true relationship with God is impossible without loving people (1 John 4:7, 8). The revolution of Jesus' subversive kingdom was a revolution of love. He overthrew the satanic strongholds of hatred, intolerance and religion that marred the image of His creation. The powers that He overthrew were neither territorial, nor geographical but were those powers that disfigured a person's soul. His revolution was inward and spiritual, a revolution of the heart. One of the ways that Jesus demonstrated the love of God was by showing people grace. Jesus was quick to point out that laws and rules will not bring people into the kingdom… only love will.

Rom 5:20 (MSG) "All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down."

Aggressive? Forgiveness? Gracing people into the kingdom? Now that seems pretty hard! You may ask how I can aggressively forgive when so much has been done to me. That may work for Jesus … but that's a different story for me. From my experience it is those who have experienced forgiveness that are more readily to give it away. I believe that the most powerful weapon of the New Covenant is forgiveness. If we have a problem with forgiving it is usually because we are making ourselves to be a judge and if we do that we have a need to establish guilt and punishment to vindicate our sense of justice. The only problem with that is that if we walk through life as the judge we end up entrapped in our own cell of bitterness.

Showing love will definitely challenge us, but it will also change us. The kingdom of God is demonstrated every time we choose love over hate, love over unforgiveness, love over intolerance, love over greed, love over violence, and love over injustice. I believe the way of love is the better way. I think that the love of God is the simple answer to all our complex questions.

Love tells us the truth when all we have ever known are lies. Love tells us that we are accepted when all we have ever known is rejection. Love tells us of freedom when all we have known is addiction. Love tells us about grace when all we have ever known is religion.

We are called to be an army in a revolution of love. We are the healers in broken places, pouring ourselves out to a hurting and suffering world. As Donald Miller says "We're called to hold our hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding" and the only way is by demonstrating the Love of God.

… and love without stopping. (1 Cor. 16:14, the Message)"

Live Loved – Bert White

Grace - The reed and the Rock

Hi Everyone,

Recently, in the past two months, someone pointed out to me that Peter wept bitterly when he and Jesus exchanged glances after Peter had denied Jesus three times. This person's point was that Peter was bitterly remorseful because he sinned against Jesus and that we should react similarly when we sin against Him. While I don't deny that Peter's denial of Jesus was in fact a sin, I sincerely doubt this is the lesson we are to learn from this passage.

It is my belief that Peter, who had boasted of his own love for Jesus and his own determination to follow his Savior's footsteps, even to the point of death, was bitterly remorseful because he realized his boasting in himself was a complete failure. Peter boasted of his love for Jesus and failed. I believe we should also remember that Holy Spirit as Comforter had not yet come, hence all the more Peter's bitter sorrow.

What we see as the result of this story is Jesus' restoration of Peter when Jesus three times asks Peter if he had "agape" love for Jesus. Peter's response was, "Jesus, you know that I "phileo" You. Here Peter shows his no-confidence vote in his own love for Jesus, stating the his love for Jesus was at best a brotherly love, not the God-type of agape love.

The point: Peter learned to boast in Jesus' love for him, not his love for Jesus. This is to be our experience with God, not our boasting and attempting in our own strength to love Him more.

Let Him love you; let Him impress you. This is how you will grow in Grace.

Enjoy the grace article below!

Grace=Peace,
Jeremy


The reed and the Rock
By Mick Mooney

They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. 1 Corinthians 10:3-4

When we look once more into the gospels we see that out of all of the disciples, Peter seemed to be the stand out disciple. When his relationship with Jesus began, Jesus said something very interesting. He said to him:

Your name is Simon son of John, you will be called Peter. John 1:42

One of the interpretations of the name Simon is 'reed'. A reed is very fragile; it is easily blown about in the wind. Peter means 'rock'. A rock is strong and solid, it stands firm. What Jesus could have been saying to him was "you are insecure and easily shaken, but I will make you stand firm." It is interesting how he interpreted that moment. Jesus meant that he was going to make him a rock through the finished work of the cross, but he interpreted Jesus' words through the focus of 'self' and spent the rest of his walk with Jesus trying to make that word come to pass in his own strength.

From that time on Peter was always trying to be the rock for Jesus. When Jesus asked a question, it was always Peter who tried to answer it first. When Jesus was walking on the water, it was Peter who stepped out of the boat and walked on the water with Jesus. Yet, in his zeal to change himself into a rock for Jesus, he found himself time and time again failing! The more he zealously tried to be a great Christian, the more he felt he was not good enough. More than that, Jesus himself seemed to be the one who kept pointing out that he had such little faith.

'Come' he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink cried out. 'Lord, save me!' Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. 'You of little faith' he said 'why did you doubt?' Matthew 14:29-31

The first few steps he took when he walked on the water happened while he was looking at Jesus, but he quickly turned away from him and started looking at the wind. He became scared and began to sink. At this point Jesus reached out and saved him. In that moment Jesus made an incredible statement. He said to Peter "You of little faith, why did you doubt?"

You can just imagine Peter thinking to himself, 'little faith? Are you being serious Jesus? I have huge faith, and I just walked on water by faith. What else do you want me to do to prove to you I have faith!' However, Jesus was not asking him where his faith was to walk on water; he was asking Peter why he had such little faith to keep his focus on him.

It is easy as Christians to think that we need faith to do things, but actually faith is not needed 'for' things, it is needed 'in' Christ. We need to have faith in the greatness of Christ. We need faith to believe the fullness of what he has accomplished for us, not faith to merely do great things for him.

Peter spent three years walking with Jesus trying to change himself by his efforts and his works into the 'rock' Jesus said he would be. What he eventually discovered was that he would never become the rock Jesus called him to be by his own will. He became a rock when he gave up trying to live the life of faith in his own strength, and allowed Christ to transform him by his Spirit.

Jesus died for all of us, to guarantee we would all receive the Holy Spirit, and it is this Spirit that makes all of us firm and secure in our faith. It is a gift from God based on the perfect finished work of Christ.

We are all made rocks in Christ when we are made into new creations. God doesn't expect us to change ourselves into rocks for him; he expects us to live in the one true Rock—Jesus himself. With this focus we give access to the Spirit of God to transform us into rocks for God—firm and secure in the covenant of grace that we have with him.

Keep your eyes on Jesus and rest in the understanding that God will transform your life to be one that reflects his great love and grace. From God's perspective, the way to have great faith is not by doing great works for God, but through beholding the greatness of Jesus. If you do this, you can be sure that the Spirit will do his part and finish all of the good works God has prepared in advance to complete through your life. (Ephesians 2:10)