Do You Live by Principles or a Person?

Many years ago, when the earth was cooling, I was sucked in to the black hole of legalism. I was in love with Jesus Christ as a teen at age 19. A friend's mom invited me to attend a seminar with her that she just thought was great. What should have been a question for me to consider was the fact that she seemed always to be depressed.   But, with no one to mentor me, I paid my fee and went to this large arena for an entire week.

Day after day, I heard that God has hundreds of principles in the Bible that He expects us to live by.   If we are having struggles in any area of our life, it is because we are not practicing God's principles.   It was very convincing as story after story seemed to validate that we really are bound by God to live by principles. Little did I know that I was being ambushed by legalism. I had a great zeal for Jesus but no understanding of the gospel of grace. It reminds me of the scripture, "My people perish from a lack of knowledge." (Hosea 4:6)

If we fast forward, by the time I was 30 years old I was a mess. For over 10 years I was so passionately focused on obeying God's principles, that I lost sight of my first love, Jesus Himself.   The results for me were large doses of depression, discouragement and eventually disillusionment.   I finally burned out totally.

Our story with God is supposed to be written with the ink of love.   When it is not, we can drift into living by Biblical principles and completely miss the relationship God has always intended for us to have.

The good news for me is  that God's love for me was and is much greater than the deception I had embraced. When I could no longer do the principles, our awesome loving God met me, bringing me back into a deeper way to the love relationship I experienced when I was 19. This time, I knew enough about the gospel of grace to leave legalism forever.

I am not saying there are not principles in God's Word. He has the best way to live in our marriages, to manage our finances, etc. But those are only doable when we are living from the relationship with the one who loves us and lives in us, the person of Jesus Christ who is our life!

How about you? Are you drawn more towards principles or the Person who lives in you?

               Until next time, remember, He loves us!

Live Free In Christ, Mark Maulding, President and Founder
GraceLifeInternational.com

 All Content Copyright © 2012 Mark Maulding

Do You Enjoy God?

Enjoying God is a foreign concept to many Christians. Asked to describe their relationship with God, few would use the word "enjoy".  A famous statement tells us that our purpose in life is to "glorify God and enjoy Him forever". We have probably been taught many times about glorifying God which is absolutely true but what about enjoying God. Be honest, do you enjoy God?  Is the word "enjoy" one that you would use regarding you and God?

It is fascinating the way that Jesus taught us how to pray in what we usually term the Lord's Prayer. By the way, I don't think His intent was for us to simply recite this prayer. It is a guide, almost an outline that we pray through the lens of grace. He begins the prayer with this opening, "Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be your name". It was only a few years ago that I realized the significance of beginning our prayers to God in this way.  Here is what I mean.

"Our Father" speaks of the close relationship we can experience with God when we understand the transformative gospel of grace. Many Christians perceive that God is like some other significant person in their lives such as a dad or mom. Those who experienced a close relationship with that person do not have a lot of difficulty relating to God in a positive way as their Father.  Those who experienced a distant or painful relationship with that person often relate to God as their Father in negative ways. The transformative gospel of grace can change that incorrect concept of God so we can actually enjoy God. We see it all of the time in our ministry.

"Hallowed be your name" speaks of the transcendence of God.  Don't be scared away by that word. It communicates to us that God is our Creator.  He is holy. He is awesome. He is eternal.  He needs no one.  He is God and we are not! This leads us into a place of a proper fear of God, worshipping Him for who He is. Don't get sidetracked here with the word "fear". It does not mean that we are afraid of Him and His discipline for our sins. This fear is a deep reverence and awe for God. As we recognize the truth of Who God is, it sometimes puts us on our knees or on our faces and we say, "Wow!" There is great enjoyment in worshiping Him as God.

We can enjoy God the most, when we relate to Him as our loving close Father and our awesome Creator God. We can get out of balance if we emphasize one over the other.

So do you enjoy God? If not, ask Him to correct your erroneous view of Him as your Father and as your great God.

Until next time, remember, He loves us!

Live Free In Christ,

Mark Maulding, President and Founder GraceLifeInternational.com

Is Your Life "Rooted" in God's Love?

You may be surprised to learn that I have a degree in horticulture.  Though I do not use that degree, I do know some things about plants and trees. Take Azaleas for example.  There is nothing more beautiful in the spring than a yard full of these colorful flowering plants. One of the greatest displays of them is often seen on television at the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, Georgia.

One of the fascinating tricks to growing beautiful healthy Azaleas is to make certain the soil they are rooted in is acidic. The acid must be the correct kind or it will destroy the roots which will then wither the plant possibly killing it.

In Ephesians 3:14-20 there is a terrific prayer I often pray for myself, my family, my staff and all those we minister to.  The prayer is basically one where we are asking God to give Christians a deeper revelation of Christ in us.  One of the results of this will be that we will be rooted and grounded in God's love for us.

Ponder the picture God gives us of roots from our soul being in the best soil they could ever be in, the perfect soil of God's love.  To have the roots of our soul drinking deeply from God's love is indescribable.  I not only say that from personal experience but mainly from the conclusion of that prayer.

So where are the roots of your soul today?  Here is a reality check. If those roots are not first and foremost in God's love, then they are somewhere else vainly attempting to get our God-given need for love met in a person, a possession or a position.  When we live like this, over time our soul withers and we may even feel like we are dying.  No spouse, child, parent, date, friend, house, car, clothes, job or anything else can provide our soul with the love we need.  Only God Himself, Who is love, can constantly nourish our soul with the perfect kind of love we need.

All of us at times seek to meet our deepest need for love in the wrong place.  This will eventually lead us into disappointment, emptiness or frustration.  Don't get me wrong, it is great to be loved by someone else, to enjoy our possessions, and to look forward to our job.  The reality is that we can actually enjoy those more when we are rooted in God's love; then we can be OK when those sources dry up.

Why don't you pray that prayer in Ephesians this week for yourself and those you care about?

Until next time, remember He loves us.

Live free in Christ,

Mark Maulding, President and Founder
www.GraceLifeInternational.com 

Do You Accept Yourself and Is It Biblical?

When your life becomes difficult and you believe you just have to talk to someone, what kind of person do you look for? Most of us not only want someone who may have wisdom for our situation but we also search for a person who will accept us no matter what we tell them.

Maybe we believe God loves us and are able to rest in His love for us. Maybe you have even gone so far as to really believe your Heavenly Father accepts you regardless of what you do. But have you taken the next step? Do YOU accept yourself?

Just as it is often more difficult to forgive ourselves than it is to forgive others, it is also more difficult to accept ourselves even though we accept others. This is not only true for the typical Christian; it is also true for Christian leaders. How do I know? Well, first, I was one of them many years ago. I have not been a pastor of a local church in 20 years but I now spend some of my time mentoring, counseling and coaching pastors. Inevitably, this topic rolls around during our conversation. Christian leaders have just as much difficulty accepting themselves as the rest of us. So, why do we struggle so much with this?

It is because we are focused on the wrong criteria for accepting ourselves. Here is what we tend to do. We examine our lives and think about the positive and negative things we do. If we are honest, we hope that we can "score ourselves" in the positive. Some of us inflate that score in our minds so we can accept ourselves. That is prideful. Most of us realize that regardless of the score, there are things about us that we just don't like. So we just cannot accept ourselves.

Let's change our focus. If you have read my previous devotions, hopefully you are convinced God accepts you because He made you acceptable when He gave you His righteousness. It is His acceptance of us that gives us the ability to accept ourselves! Because He accepts us, that is the basis of us accepting ourselves.

Here is what I want you to do this week. I want you to pray something like this often. "Father because you accept me, I accept me." It may feel uncomfortable at first but as the week rolls on, I think you will experience a deeper peace. Do not mistake this for positive thinking as some books teach. This is positive believing in what God declares is true....He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on my behalf, so that I might become the righteousess of God in Him. (2nd Cor. 5:21)

Until next time, remember, He loves us! 

Live Free In Christ, Mark Maulding, President Founder GraceLifeInternational.com

Are We Really Righteous of Does God Just See Us that Way?

In our ministry, week in and week out, we teach people from Scripture that through their faith in Christ, they are righteous. Over time, most cannot deny that the Gospel, as explained in the Scriptures, is clear that God has declared us to be righteous. (See Romans 3:21-22:5:15. 17, 19, 1 Cor. 1:30, 2 cor. 5:21, Heb. 5:13.) However, we sometimes discover that though they believe this, their understanding of it may not be complete.

In our Grace Life Conference, which we teach in our office monthly, and in churches or groups hosting the Conference, we spend quite a bit of time clarifying this Biblical reality. I am going to share today what we teach about this. It is called, "Deceptions Regarding Our Righteousness".

Deception 1: God says I am righteous because, I am covered with the robe of righteousness. This is Biblical, but misunderstood. Many wrongly believe that under this robe God sees a sinner.

Deception 2: God says I am righteous because I am covered by the blood of Christ. Thank God for the precious blood of Christ shed for our sins! Yet, similar to #1, many wrongly believe that underneath the blood of Christ, God still sees a sinner.

Deception 3: God says I am righteous, because Christ is my filter. The erroneous idea here, is that God hides me behind Jesus Christ, because He can't bear to look at me.

Deception 4: God says I am righteous because of my position in Christ. This one is tricky because we are certainly in Christ. Yet, the way it is usually taught is that, this really means God sees me as righteous, but, I won't really be righteous until I go to heaven. So, He is kind of "pretending". That completely negates the new birth that has already happened!

Deception 5: God says I am righteous because when He looks at me He only sees Christ in me. Without a doubt, Jesus Christ is in us! But, for our holy God to live in us, He had to prepare a place to live. He had to cure once and for all two problems...remove our sin, and the sinner. He also had to replace our sinner spirit with a new creation spirit, which is righteous. Only by doing this, can God live in us.

Deception 6: God says I am righteous because, He has completely forgiven me. The forgiveness we possess in Christ is incredibly powerful. However, forgiveness only removes my unrighteousness. It does not give me righteousness.

One pastor exclaimed after understanding that he had believed all of the deceptions, "I knew I was saved, but I didn't know I was that saved"! Oh, how many of us could probably say the same thing!

Are you willing to pray and thank your heavenly Father for revealing these deceptions, and agree with Him, that you are righteous through your faith in Christ?

Be Free In Christ, Mark Maulding, President Founder GraceLifeInternational.com

Do You Accept Yourself?

Do you have any Christmas gifts you have not opened from last Christmas yet?   I doubt you do. Most people can't wait to open their gifts. In fact, if you have a Christmas gift you have not opened by now, something must be wrong and maybe you need counseling! Just kidding. I ask this because of the obvious ludicrousy of this scenario - having a gift but never opening it.

Yet, in our ministry we have discovered that many, if not most, Christians have a gift from God they have never opened.   They were given this gift the moment they were saved. This gift has not been taken back by God. We have had it every single day, every single minute since the day of our salvation. It is the gift of righteousness.

Romans 5:17 is one of my very favorite verses in the Bible. In it, the Holy Spirit writes, "Those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ."   Let's unpack that verse carefully.   The main overarching idea is God has provided a way for us to live our lives in the way He always intended. We have the potential to live life to the max! But how?   First, live every day by grace. The opposite of grace is to live life by rules or by self-help. To live by grace means to live daily enjoying Jesus Christ in us and then depending on Him to live through us. Second, we need to "receive" the gift of righteousness. This does not mean you and I don't have the gift of righteousness. It means, because of our lack of understanding the gospel, we really haven't "unwrapped" this precious incredibly valuable gift.  

So how do we unwrap or receive the gift of righteousness?   The truth is simple, but believing the truth here may be difficult for you. To receive the gift of righteousness it means that you must believe God made you totally righteous in your identity in Christ the moment He saved you. This does not mean you have or will live a perfectly righteous life, but it does mean that who you are deep within, is a righteous son or daughter of God.

One time, I asked a young married man, who was a believer in Christ, "How righteous are you"?   He paused and said, "Well it depends upon the day". He had not received the free gift of righteousness. His gift was unwrapped.

So, here is the million dollar question. Do you believe that you are righteous through your faith in Christ (not your good deeds or obedience to God)? 

            Until next time, remember He love us!          

Live Free In Christ, Mark Maulding, President Founder GraceLifeInternational.com

Are You as Righteous as Your Pastor?

Are you as righteous as your pastor? Are you as righteous as Billy Graham? Are you as righteous as Jesus Christ? Unless you answered "yes" to all three of those questions, your understanding of the Gospel is incorrect.

You may be protesting in your mind reasoning that your could not possibly be as righteous as Jesus Christ because you are keenly aware of your sins and failures. And in one sense, you are right to think that way. God's Word tells us that our righteousness is like "filthy rags". (Isaiah 64:6) The apostle Paul said that he was perfect when it came to the righteousness which comes from obeying the 10 Commandments (Philippians 4:6). Yet, he later denounced this type of righteousness because it is "self-righteousness". It is produced by you trying to live a good or even a godly life in hopes that it will make you more righteous before God. This is the righteousness God detests and finds unacceptable.

For many years, deep within, I falsely believed that if I could obey God more, He would be more pleased with such obedience that He would love and accept me more.   While it is important to live a life which pleases Him, what I believed was not only error, the stress of living that way eventually burned me out. So much so, that when I read the Bible my stomach hurt!   Don't get me wrong, I believed theologically that God accepted me but beneath that factual knowledge, I really believed I had to earn His acceptance. I was in Christ, but I was living in the trap and sin of self-righteousness. It almost killed me!

Romans 5:19 says, "For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous." Adam's disobedience in the garden made us sinners. Jesus obedience on the Cross makes us 100% righteous through our faith in Him.

Today, I urge you to confess your sin of self-righteousness to God and receive His forgiveness. But don't stop there.  Tell Him you believe you are now righteous because of Jesus' obedience and not yours!

Until next time, remember He loves us.   

Be Free In Christ, Mark Maulding, President Founder GraceLifeInternational.com