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
