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Showing posts with label freedom from performing for acceptance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label freedom from performing for acceptance. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Do We Need to Balance Grace with Law?


What would your life be like if you decided you were going to live totally by grace instead of the 10 Commandments and religious rules?  Would you feel free, or would you feel afraid?  Today, some fear that teaching people to live exclusively by grace will lead Christians to increased sinning. There are phrases which have been created to describe their beliefs about this kind of teaching. Here are a few: license to sin, greasy grace, and hyper grace.  These fears almost always lead to one conclusion: Christians need some law to balance grace.

Here is how it is sometimes couched.  "God's grace gives us the power to obey the 10 Commandments."  I once believed this and taught it.  I dedicated myself for over 10 years to calling upon God's grace to give me the strength and power to obey the Big 10.  I began this with high hopes and excitement.  Five years later I was filled with pride and self-righteousness. It ended in a fog of depression and finally giving up on it all.  I told my wife one night at the end of this part of my journey, "If this is all there is to being a Christian, it doesn't work, and I can't do this any longer."

God gave the Law for some very specific purposes: 1. To show people their sins. "Through the Law comes the knowledge of sin" (Romans 3:20 b). 2. To make people sin more. "The Law came in so that transgression might increase" (Romans 5:20 a).3. To minister death and condemnation.  "But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was, how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory?  For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory" (2 Corinthians 3:7-9).4. To prepare every person who hears the Law to embrace Jesus Christ as their Savior.  "Let me put it another way. The Law was our guardian until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made right with God through faith." (Galatians 3:24).

The moment a person places their faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior, any allegiance to the Law abruptly stops because we have "Somebody" better. "And now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the Law as our guardian" (Galatians 5:25). Why? We have Jesus in us.  He is not rule based at all but completely relationship based. Once our focus is on Him, we stop performing the rules for God and depend on Jesus to live a life of love through us. And what is amazing is that when we focus on Jesus, we fulfill the Law without even thinking about it! "Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God's Law" (Romans 13:10).

We also have the Law written on our hearts and minds according to Hebrews 10:16."This is the new covenant I will make with My people on that day, says the Lord: I will put My Laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds." This is a reference to our identity in Christ as holy and righteous sons and daughters of God.  The deepest part of who we are wants to live a life consistent with who we are.

We don't need the Law to balance the life-giving power of living by grace.  We have Jesus, Mr. Grace Himself, in us so we can enjoy His love, love Him back and rely on Him to live through our new creation identity.

That night as I laid in that dark room full of despair, my DAD spoke to me, letting me know that He not only loved me but accepted me even if the church I was starting failed.   Yet, when God first revealed the love and life of Christ to me, I still did not understand that grace had freed me from the Law.  Little by little, my mind was renewed to where I saw that it can't be both.

How about you?  Are you ready to give up on Law-based living plus grace-based living?  That combination still equals trying harder.  If so, you can begin to simply trust that living by pure grace alone is enough.  It's a choice I urge you to make today.  It may be scary at first, but as you experience more and more freedom to live like you've always wanted deep down inside as a Christ-follower, you will be glad you did!

Believe it! It's the Gospel.


Live Free In Christ,

Mark Maulding, President and Founder

www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2016 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!