Myth #8 - We Need to Balance Grace with Law

 


    God's grace seems too good to be true because God accepts us who are in Christ with no strings attached! He accepts us 100% when we obey Him and He accepts us 100% when we sin. Put another way, we cannot cause God to accept us more through obeying Him and serving Him nor can we cause God to accept us less when we disobey or don't serve Him. When we are reading our Bibles, praying, giving, serving, attending worship, going to Sunday school or our small group, God completely accepts us. On the other hand, when we are not doing any of these, God still accepts us.

    How do we know this? When we study Romans 5, by the end of the chapter, we see two amazing statements. Romans 5:1 says, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." (NASB) Justified means to be forgiven of all sins - past, present and future; and it means to be made 100% righteous. In fact, by being a new creation in Christ, we have become as righteous as God in our identity! (See Corinthians 5:21) The second amazing statement we see is Romans 5:20. "The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more." (NIV) In other words, we cannot "out sin" God's grace! Grace is always faster, bigger and stronger than our sin!

    This might scare us into thinking, "If people believe this, they will live a very sinful lifestyle. We need to balance grace with God's law so they will not sin." Actually, believing that God accepts us will lead us into an incredible intimacy with the One who is in us! And from this intimacy, we will sin less and obey God more! We do not need the law to keep us from sinning. That is what Romans 5-8 is all about. (If you have never studied Romans 5-8, please consider coming to one of our weekends or purchase our CDs. Find out more info in this email.) Keep walking in the grace of God and don't lose your freedom in Christ!

Live Free In Christ,


Mark Maulding, President and Founder




www.GraceLifeInternational.com

All Content Copyright © 2012 Mark Maulding

Christian Myth #7 - If I Really Trusted God, I Wouldn't Have Problems

    I wish it was true that if we trusted God we wouldn't have problems and our lives would always be great. That would be terrific...if it was the way God operated. This kind of thinking comes in many different forms such as: "If I really trusted God I would never have financial problems." "If I really trusted God, I would always be blessed with good circumstances." "If I really trusted God, I would get healed." "If I really trusted God, I wouldn't get depressed or feel afraid." "If I trusted God, I wouldn't need to take an anti-depressant." "If I really trusted God, my kids wouldn't mess up." "If I really trusted God, I wouldn't need Christian counseling."

    Because this kind of thinking is false, we can feel very guilty when things don't change as we have prayed they would. Then we can even go down the road of, "If I only had enough faith."

    Some time back one of our staff had to have surgery for a serious condition. This staff member received a call from someone well intended exhorting them and somewhat scolding them that if they would really trust God and have faith, God would heal them and they would not have to have surgery. This staff member was trusting God and we were all believing God's promises. This staff member chose to have the surgery and in the midst of a very difficult recovery, experienced a depth of intimacy with God he had never known before! God did heal him through the surgery and through his faith he experienced God in new ways!

    There is no doubt God wants us to trust Him, depend on Him and believe His promises. However, even if our trust in God is 100%, that does not obligate God to do anything. He always loves us and His sovereign plans intersecting with His love are always what are best for us even when we don't understand.

    It's interesting that when you look at God's heart for us in the Bible, you see a very different perspective. For example, in 2 Corinthians 1:9-11, Paul writes that he is under such difficult circumstances he thinks he may die. He responds to this by saying, "These things happened that we might not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead." Paul's challenging life events were not a result of him not trusting God. In fact, Paul understood that these difficult circumstances were an opportunity to trust God in a deeper way.

    Did you know that Paul and his mission team experienced depression even though he trusted God? He writes in 2 Corinthians 7:6, "But God, who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus." Paul also had health problems though he trusted God. He reminded the Christians in Galatia "As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you." Galatians 4:13

    Trusting God is not going to keep us from problems. These problems are an opportunity to affirm in prayer that we are relying on all that God is and has promised because we are united with Him. To live in and from our union with God while we trust Him provides opportunity after opportunity to go deeper into intimacy with Him!

Live Free in Christ,


Mark Maulding, Founder & President




www.GraceLifeInternational.com

All Content Copyright © 2012 Mark Maulding

Christian Myth #6 - If I Obey God, He Will Love Me More

 

    It is very typical for us as Christians to think that God will love us more if we obey Him but that is simply not true. Yet, every week our counselors at Grace Life hear Christian after Christian share on some level how they believe God's love for them is in direct proportion to their obedience to Him. We understand how they feel because most of us were there at one time but it also breaks our hearts knowing the bondage this produces.

    It seems as if we are sometimes schizophrenic in how we view God's love for us. We tell those outside of Christ that God loves them no matter what they have done and He wants to have a relationship with them through faith in Jesus Christ. Once a person has come to Christ, we can infer or say outright that God will now love them only if they obey Him. Wait a minute! So God loves us unconditionally so we can come to faith in Christ but once we are saved, God loves us conditionally? To take a line from the movie, "O Brother Where Art Thou", "That don't make no sense!" It would seem as though our Father's love would be just as unconditional after we are saved. Right? So, for we who are in Christ unconditional means that there are no strings attached to our behavior whether good or bad.

    I love what John wrote in 1 John 1: "We love Him because He first loved us." Living with the constant awareness of God's love will lead us to obey Him. Imagine a child telling her parents she loves them but not obeying them.

    For some who believe in living by grace, if the topic of obedience to God comes up, they immediately call that legalism. As Forest Gump said, "I'm not a very smart man, Jenny, but I do know what love is." I'm not a very smart man either but I do know what God's love is. And I know that when we know God loves us, we want to obey Him because we love Him. That's not legalism at all. It's a love relationship. Paul wrote that the love of Christ compelled Him to obey God.

    If you are a recovering legalist, like me, and you have recently come out of legalism, I realize that because you obeyed God for all the wrong reasons, that word may conjure up very bad feelings. I remember when I had my grace awakening that I had no idea how to pray, even though I had been praying for two hours a day before that. I had to ask God to show me what prayer was all about because I had done it to impress God so He would love me more. We may need to ask the Holy Spirit to renew our minds about the difference in love based obedience versus legalistic based obedience to God.

    We need to ask ourselves where we are as we read this? Have we obeyed God so He would love us more? The good news is He loves us whether we obey Him or not. Let's all pray the Holy Spirit would deepen our understanding of this great gospel truth!

Live Free in Christ,


Mark Maulding, Founder & President




www.GraceLifeInternational.com

All Content Copyright © 2012 Mark Maulding

Christian Myth #5 - I'm Just a Sinner Saved by Grace

The common phrase, "I'm just a sinner saved by grace", sounds humble but it is far from the message of the gospel. I understand what people are attempting to communicate. All of us in Christ realize that before our salvation, we did not deserve our salvation. Then after our salvation, because we still sin, we do not deserve the blessings God gives to us. While this phrase may sound humble, it is not true and may actually cause us to sin more. Why?

We understand that the perception we have of ourselves will determine how we live our lives. The late Dr. Adrian Rogers said, "The me I see is the me I'll be." Take a moment and repeat that statement. If we are just a sinner saved by grace, why would we expect to do anything other than sin? In fact, if that is who we really are deep within our inner most being, it would be much more likely for us to sin. Right?

So who are we? The only perspective of us which really matters is God's. Believing any opinion we or anyone else has of us which is contrary to God's opinion causes much trouble. When we agree with God about who we are and the Holy Spirit makes this real to us, it transforms us. Our Abba says things like, "You are my son/daughter". "You are a saint." "You are righteous." You are beloved (lovable and loved)." Isn't that really fantastic news?

Unfortunately, it is tempting to do mental gymnastics to squirm around this truth by believing God just sees us that way but it won't really be true until heaven. The good news is that who God says we are is true now, regardless of our sins, obedience, feelings, etc. 1 John 3:1 says "What marvelous love the Father has extended to us! Just look at it--we're called children of God! That's who we really are." (The Message) Notice that last phrase - "That is who we really are". God is not pretending or just seeing us as we will be in heaven one day.

I was the main speaker at a pastor and wife retreat when I met him. He was 21 and trying to decide whether to come and hear me speak or to go to the youth event. He asked me about my topic and I told him it was about who we are in Christ. He decided to stay and he heard me preach all three sessions. The last day after everyone departed, he approached me with his story.

"I am a Christian but until recently, I strayed far from my relationship with God. Because of the things I did, I did not feel worthy of God blessing me with a godly wife who loved Jesus like I now do. After hearing what God says about who I am in Christ, I realize that I can have a godly wife." About a year later, he married one of the sweetest young ladies who loved Jesus just as much as he did. He is now a student pastor.

What if we all said, "I was a sinner saved by grace. Now I am a child of God who sometimes sins." Our experience at Grace Life is that when people come to believe this in their hearts, they actually sin less and are much more aware of when they do sin. God cannot lie and He does not call you a sinner saved by grace but He calls us His child and much, much more. What will we call ourselves today?

Live Free in Christ,

Mark Maulding, Founder & President



 www.gracelifeinternational.com
Copyright © 2012 Mark Maulding