Does Suffering Turn You Away From Jesus or Toward Jesus?

Several years ago, a young beloved police officer was gunned down in our city causing a flood of tears for many, especially his wife.  As anyone would, she deeply grieved over his death and her loss of him. She believed it was the worst thing that could ever happen to her as a young bride.  Soon, anger towards God began to swell in her soul. After the funeral, she set up a meeting with her pastor.

Through angry tears, she told him that she could no longer believe in Jesus because if He would let her husband be taken from her, then she wanted nothing to do with Him.  The pastor lovingly tried to convince her to change her mind but she was immovable.  She walked away from her faith in Jesus never to return.

In another story, a lady came to GLI to receive personal counseling for years of debilitating depression and discouragement.  God worked through the counselor to share with her the freedom found in the Gospel for Christians.  As she began to understand the overwhelming love of God for her, her years of depression and discouragement were replaced with great joy. 

Shortly afterwards, her husband also died without warning.  She was heartbroken, full of grief and anger towards God.  But her story ends very differently.  Because she understood that nothing could separate her from God’s amazing love for her, she released her anger and turned to Jesus in her for comfort and solace. 

The Apostle Paul wrote, For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8:38-39.

King David wrote that God’s love was better than anything in his life after his son, Absalom, had chased him out of the palace with vicious threats to murder him. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.  Psalms 63:3-4

When you truly begin to understand how much God loves you, no matter what comes at you in life, you eventually will turn toward a deeper trust and intimacy with Jesus rather than away from Him.  It may take some time for you to get there, but you will get there.

Are you convinced that God loves you no matter what happens?  Or do you look at good or bad circumstances as indicators of whether God loves you?  The first leads to freedom.  The latter leads to bondage.

I urge you to make a decision today, no matter how you feel or what life is throwing at you, that God loves you no matter what.  If you need help getting there call us at 704-522-9026 for a live or Skype consultation.  God does not want you to live feeling unloved by him for one more minute!  

Believe it! It's the Gospel.

Live Free In Christ,

Mark Maulding, President and Founder

www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!

The New Testament Begins in Acts not Matthew

If you are like I used to be, you may be greatly confused when you read the Gospels.  They seem to contradict other New Testament Scripture.  Most of our confusion is because we think these teachings are part of the New Covenant (Testament).  However most of them are not.  The New Testament starts in Acts, not Matthew.  How do we know that?

When we are reading, we need to ask ourselves a question.  “Has Jesus died yet when this was written?”  If not, it’s Old Covenant, in most cases.  If He has died, it’s New Covenant writing.

When Jesus came to the earth, He came directly to the Jews who were still under the Old Covenant relationship with God. Want to get the gist of the Old Covenant?  Deuteronomy 28 spells it out very clearly.  If Israel obeyed God’s laws, there were12 verses of blessings He would give them.  (See 1-14)  If Israel disobeyed God’s laws, there were 52 verses of curses He would give them. (See 15-68)

Do you want to live in that kind of relationship with God?  I don’t!  Unfortunately, many Christians believe that is still how God treats them though we are under the New Covenant of grace.  So, Christianity is a burden instead of a blessing.

A lot of what Jesus taught was Old Covenant teaching to the Jews of His day.  And when He taught them, He was raising the bar of how perfect they needed to be accepted and blessed by God. Here are some examples: 

Unless you are more righteous than the strictest religious leaders in Jesus’s day, the Scribes and the Pharisees, you will not go to heaven.  Matthew 5:20

Calling someone an idiot or crazy because you are angry with them will send you to hell.  Matthew 5:22. 

Lust is adultery.  Matthew 5: 27-28

If you don’t forgive people who offend you, God will not forgive you.  Matthew 6:15

If you don’t forgive people who offend you, God will send you to hell.  Matthew 18:21-25

You must live a perfect life exactly the way God does.  Matthew 5:48

These teachings were aimed at showing the Jews of His day and anyone who reads them now that it is impossible to get God to accept you unconditionally by obeying the law.  He wanted to prepare them for how much they needed Him to be their Savior.

He was about to bring into existence the New Covenant and was preparing them and everyone else for it.  But the New Covenant did not begin until after Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection and ascension.  See Hebrew 9:15.

Let’s compare what the New Covenant says about God and you as a Christ follower.

God has already forgiven you whether you forgive or not.  Colossians 2:13

God made you perfect in your identity in Christ.  Hebrews 10:14

God made you a saint (holy person) and not a lustful person in Christ.  1 Corinthians 1:2

God made you a patient person because you are complete in Christ.  Colossians 2:10

The Old Covenant was conditional based on man’s imperfect works.  The New Covenant is conditional based on faith in Jesus’ perfect work.

Read the New Testament with clarity today as you understand the New Testament starts in Acts, not Matthew.

Believe it! It's the Gospel.

Live Free In Christ,

Mark Maulding, President and Founder

www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!

Living in Peace in the Present

We have this really cool handout at Grace Life International entitled, Living in Peace.  It is a diagram of a large cross in the center of the page.  The left side of the cross is about our PAST.  We often struggle with bitterness, resentment and regret from our past.  Those feelings can be directed not only at others but towards ourselves and even God.  Because of the cross of Jesus, we can live out of who we are in Christ as forgivers, passing on the forgiveness we have received from God.  I’ve been writing on that truth for the past few weeks and have received some wonderful responses from our readers about how God has brought new freedom to their lives.  Praise God! (If you have missed those or want to see any of my past blogs, visit www.MarkMauding.com.)

The right side of the cross is about our FUTURE.  We often struggle with fear, worry and anxiety as we think about our future.  Have you ever written a fearful story in your mind about how a situation is going to turn out in the future?  I have many times and what I’ve noticed is that God is never involved in that story. That’s the enemy putting those kinds of fearful thoughts into our minds. 

A major way to live in peace about our future is to give up our rights to our future to God.  That is what the right side of the cross shows in this diagram.  In Philippians 2:6, we read about Jesus, Though He was God, He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. (NLT)   Jesus, being God, had the right to stay in heaven in the future instead of becoming a human being.  However, He gave up that right in order to please His Father.  In the same way, our same Father, asks us to give up our rights, too.

There are those who say we have no rights to give up and there are those who say we do.  It’s probably both.  Jesus had a right to stay in heaven as God.  Paul had a right to marry a Christian wife like Peter did.  Those were legitimate rights, but they gave them up.  There are other times we have “false” rights which are not true.  How about - the right to have perfect children?  - the right to have a perfect spouse?  - the right to get married?  - the right to perfect health?   And more.

Do you want to have peace in the present?  Forgive others, yourself and God (God cannot sin but we can still feel angry with him.)  Then give up your rights for your life to go the way you believe it must for you to be happy.  We say it this way at GLI.  A desire is fine but once we turn it from a desire to an expectation, we start living by law instead of grace. 

If you would like a copy of this handout, please click here https://www.scribd.com/doc/271473630/Living-in-Peace-in-the-Present and download it for free.

Believe it. It’s the Gospel.

Live Free in Christ,

Mark Maulding, President and Founder

www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!

Do You Struggle With Anger?

Do you ever feel angry?  Of course, you do.  Everyone does.  If you say you are not angry because Christians aren't supposed to be angry, let me use some other words for anger:  frustrated, irritated, annoyed, exasperated, and aggravated.  There are of course, stronger expressions of anger as we will see later.

When my kids were younger, there was a card game craze called Pokémon.  My boys were drawn into that craze and loved it.  One day, I discovered that two of them had stolen a few cards from some neighbor kids.  I couldn't believe it!  I felt so angry.  With one swipe of my hands across the counter, I scattered the cards and a bowl of popcorn across the room and told them I couldn't believe they had stolen the cards!  Then I went with them to return them to their friends and to ask for forgiveness.

Were my actions a demonstration of righteous anger like Jesus when he turned over the money changers tables in the temple?   (John 2:13-16)  Or, were they the fruit of my flesh, which just "went off?" 

Anger is a normal human emotion which is sometimes sinful and sometimes not.  Ephesians 4:26a says, Be angry and yet do not sin. Have you ever read some of the Psalms when the writer was expressing to God how angry he felt?  In Psalms 10:16-17, David prays, Break the arms of these wicked, evil people!   Go after them until the last one is destroyed.   The Lord is king forever and ever!   The godless nations will vanish from the land.  This wasn't sinful anger.  He was simply telling the Lord how he felt, a great example for all of us.

There is also sinful anger which is often destructive in families and at work.  This anger has many faces, according to Ephesians 4:31. Let all bitterness and indignation and wrath (passion, rage, bad temper) and resentment (anger, animosity) and quarreling (brawling, clamor, contention) and slander (evil-speaking, abusive or blasphemous language) be banished from you, with all malice (spite, ill will, or baseness of any kind). AMP

What is God's solution for our sinful anger?  We need to admit to ourselves and mostly to God that we have this problem and stop justifying it.  We need to remember that in Christ, we are not angry people but instead, already patient and kind.   We need to tell Jesus how much we need Him to live through us in place of the anger.  To remove barriers preventing Him from living through us, we need to deal with our past and our future.  Let me explain.

To deal with our past, God has given us the grace to forgive those who have offended us.  To deal with our future, God gives us the grace to relinquish our rights and expectations in every area of our lives to Him (more on that next week). 

We may also need to ask forgiveness from the people we have hurt with our anger. I've had to do that with my wife, as most men do who are living out of their true identity in Christ.  I need to mention one more thing. 

We may also need to go talk through an issue with someone who has offended us according to Matthew 18:15-17.

If you have an issue with anger and need help, call us at 704-522-9026. We provide counseling in Charlotte, Albemarle, Asheville and anywhere by Skype.

  
Believe it! It's the Gospel.

Live Free In Christ,

Mark Maulding, President and Founder

www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!

Should We Forgive the Dead?

I received a shocking call a few weeks ago that a friend of mine was discovered dead at home on his couch.  Though I was grief stricken, I was glad when the family invited me to speak at a private graveside service.

I shared some wonderful attributes about my friend that his family didn't know.   He prayed 2-3 hours almost every day.  He prayed to enjoy God most of all.  But he also prayed for ministries, his family, for my family and many others.  He thought that was what every Christian did until I told him God had actually given him a ministry of intercession.  He was pleasantly surprised. 

He also lived a life of generosity though he lived on disability checks and had little.  He gave to help people and some ministries.  One day, he and I had lunch, as we did from time to time.  When he arrived at my office, he told me he had a gift for me and couldn't wait for me to open it. So, I fished a box out of his gift bag which contained a beautiful calf skin Bible with my name engraved in gold.  I could hardly believe it because I knew how meagerly he lived.  From his joyful expression, I could tell it gave him great joy, so I didn't dare tell him he shouldn't have bought it because he didn't have the money.

At the end of my eulogy, I did something I've never done before at a funeral.  I shared with them earlier how I had helped my friend forgive his own father who had cruelly rejected him as a child.    I acknowledged that at times, my friend could be hard to live with but I didn't leave it there. (He had flesh like all of us.) I gently challenged each of them to forgive my friend.  They heard how they could tell God the things their nephew did which offended them and how it made them feel.  They could also acknowledge to God that their nephew didn't deserve their forgiveness, just as they didn't deserve God's forgiveness.  They could then go on and tell God they forgave their nephew, even though they might not feel like it.

I realized they might think it strange to forgive someone who was already dead and in heaven.  Their act of forgiveness would accomplish two things.  First, it would be their final act of love for their nephew.  Second, it would remove a burden from each of them they probably didn't even realize was there.

I wonder if you have a person who has died whom you need to forgive for how they hurt and offended you.   You might need to forgive them for dying and leaving you.  If so, you may feel guilty for feeling this way, or think that it doesn't matter because they are already dead.  It's not wrong or too late to forgive the dead.  Forgiving them will free you from a burden you've needed to get rid of for a while.  Are you willing to be intentional in doing this?  If you don't plan it, you may never forgive and experience this awesome peace available to you in Christ.   

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:32) 

Believe it! It's the Gospel.

Live Free In Christ,

Mark Maulding, President and Founder

www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!

Freedom: Charleston Victims' Relatives Forgive Shooter

Last week, I wrote challenging myself and the rest of us with opportunities to live the New Covenant in the area of racial reconciliation.   This week, I want to let two of the relatives of the victims who were slain, challenge all of us to forgive those who hurt us.  These two of the nine, allowed Jesus to live through them to forgive the shooter face-to-face, though he did not ask for it, nor deserve it. 

Nadine Collier, daughter of victim Ethel Lance

"I forgive you. You took something very precious away from me. I will never get to talk to her ever again. I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you, and have mercy on your soul. ... You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people. If God forgives you, I forgive you."

Relative of Myra Thompson

"I would just like him to know that, to say the same thing that was just said: I forgive him and my family forgives him. But we would like him to take this opportunity to repent. Repent. Confess. Give your life to the One who matters most: Christ. So that He can change you and change your ways, so no matter what happens to you, you'll be okay."

These are taken from an online article written by Elahe Izadi in the June 19th edition of the Washington Post online.

In a similar article in USA Today, Susan Miller writes "No words are as compelling as those from the people of Charleston, who refuse to let their city be defined by this massacre.  Forgiveness, faith, and mercy: Virtues of those who live and breathe what they learn at a weekly Wednesday night Bible study at the AME church.

This is what it takes for good to overcome evil."

From People of Charleston, Lessons for All,  Susan Miller, USA Today, Tuesday, June 30, 2015, News 2A

You've just read about Jesus living through our sisters in Christ.  Yet, they don't try to hide their immense feelings of grief, loss and pain nor their desire for the legal justice needed.

Do you think they felt like forgiving?  Absolutely not! But they chose to anyway, accessing the grace they already had in Christ to make this choice. In Christ, we are forgivers and we are told to live like who we are in Ephesians 4:31-32.

It is the beginning of our own healing when we do.

"Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you."

As we approach our celebration of the 239th year of the USA's freedom, why not go deeper in your own personal freedom by asking God if there are people He wants you to forgive.  Then sit down before Him, alone preferably, and tell Him out loud:

1. Exactly what they did to you.
2. How you feel about it.
3. Then say, "I forgive _________." (call their name) 

●  We've discovered at GLI that the more specific you are in all three, the deeper your healing will be.

Do they deserve your forgiveness?  No more than we deserved God's forgiveness. 

Forgiving someone is not saying you are OK with what they did.  It's saying the opposite. "It was wrong but I choose to forgive you anyway." 

Should you go tell them?  Forgive them before God first, and then ask Him if He wants you to talk with them about it.  He will make it clear to you.  And if you do, it's most likely for the purpose of reconciliation which is different than forgiveness.

After you forgive, give God time to heal your damaged emotions.  It may not be instantaneous.  Also, if it comes back up in your mind, remind Satan you already forgave that person.

Forgiving them will free you more than you know from the weight of pain you have been carrying.

Happy Freedom Day!

Believe it! It's the Gospel.

Live Free In Christ,


Mark Maulding, President and Founder

www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!

A Call to Respond to the Charleston Church Shooting

My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I cannot sit in silence without writing about the atrocity at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church last week, when a shooter killed nine of our other brothers and sisters.  My feelings about this are so strong, that I am compelled by the love of Christ to respond.

I believe the killings were demonically motivated in the mind of the shooter.  (I don’t care to give the shooter more fame by using his name.)   Satan’s mission statement, according to Jesus in John 10:10, is to “kill, steal and destroy.” He succeeded in killing these precious nine members.  That is how this story begins, but hopefully, not how it ends.  And, a lot of that depends on whether we choose to live like who we are in Christ.

Here are some piercing questions that challenged me that I had to ask myself in how God can use this tragedy for good. Each of these questions is really about a bigger question?  “Is Christ living through me in regard to racism?”

•       Do I feel our Father’s grief over this or have I resigned myself to the inevitability of these kinds of killings?
•       Have I recognized my own sin of racism as evidenced by telling racial jokes or passing on my racist views to my children and others?
•       Have I prayed for the family members of the nine slain brothers and sisters in Christ?
•       Have I prayed for the remaining members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church?
•       Have I asked God if there is a lonely person in my life He wants me to befriend and share Christ with, who just might be the next shooter unless someone reaches out to him?
•       Have I prayed that the church as a whole would stop being the most segregated institution in America?
•       If I preach each Sunday, have I considered preaching on this?
•       If I blog, have I considered writing on this?

My prayer more than ever is that we let Jesus live through us to be a part of the answer, instead of perpetuating the problem.  Something to look forward to is that God’s kingdom in heaven is full of every race, tribe, tongue and nation according to Revelation 5:9 and 7:9.  Heaven will not have different sections based on skin color.  Every neighborhood will be multi-ethnic.

Jesus taught us to pray for the kingdom of God to come to the earth.  That includes racial diversity in the body of Christ, as well as economic and ability/disability diversity.  As His children, we can all be united in prayer that His Kingdom will come to the part of the earth we journey on.

The Jesus who lives in us grieves over what happened last week.  But He also knows it is an opportunity for the church to rise up and act as His agent, through whom He brings His kingdom to this earth.  No one person can do it all but, the One Person living in us can do more when we rely on Him to do it through each of us.

This is the Gospel in action because just as the Gospel of grace frees us from our own junk, He also desires to express Himself through us into a dark world that desperately needs His light to shine brightly.

Would you stop for a moment and ask your Heavenly Father what He might be saying to you in this devo/blog?

Believe it! It's the Gospel.

Live Free In Christ,

Mark Maulding, President and Founder

www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!