Level The Playing Field

Many of us know and have experienced the endless variety of “seven-step” (or eight, or nine or…) programs of “spiritual advancement”. But what if God wants to blow the whole “stages” and “levels” and Christian growth curve “theology” right out of the water and totally level the playing field? Level the playing field by reminding us that we’ve already obtained every spiritual blessing in heavenly places through one incredible event: the spilling of Christ’s blood; the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. What if this whole religious level/mortification issue was put to death in one fell swoop when we died together with Christ? Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ, and I live; yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me. And that life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith toward the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me”. (Galatians 2:20, see also Romans 6).

As we are connected to HIM and not “seven-step programs”, we’ll find that His love is overwhelming and His life uncontainable. We’ll find that sanctification is more about an overflow of our heavenly position into our earthly condition than human effort or achievement. In that ever-increasing understanding, we will find greater and greater security. The reality of our identity in Christ brings full assurance of sonship. This new awareness results in a greater consciousness of what has already taken place for us and within us and begins to outwork through us. No longer do we try and keep the law in order to be separated unto God; we live out of our union with God accomplished by grace. And that fixed position never changes. Our heavenly position can never be affected by our current earthly condition. But our earthly condition can be radically influenced by our eternal, heavenly position!  Everything changes for those who know they are already the righteousness of God in Christ.  Paul says very clearly that the Colossians started bearing fruit the day they began to understand grace. In fact, Paul declares spiritual fruit comes from hearing the message of God’s grace. No wonder II Peter 3:18 says if we want to grow, grow in this: “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and forever . Amen”

The Same Power…The Same Love

Simple lyric…powerful message…”The same power that conquered the grave lives in me. Your love that rescued the earth lives in me.” Let this truth unfold in our hearts that the Lord may be magnified.

His Presence

I asked the Lord, “How do I walk in Your presence?” What I got back went something like this: His unconditional acceptance, experienced in Christ and extended to others, is His presence. Acceptance grace is Him in me; it is “as He is, so also are we in this world”. When you touch acceptance grace within, when you are conscious of His unconditional acceptance for you and others, you are instantly in His presence and experiencing His power. It is “God so loved…” in you and through you. You can’t have acceptance grace without the presence of Jesus. Of course His unconditional acceptance of us empowers us to extend it to others. (Romans 15:7). But, as acceptance grace works in you for others, somehow you understand even more about His unconditional acceptance of you.

By revelation of God’s acceptance grace, something has forever changed in me.

There Is No Condemnation…The Debt is Fully Paid!

Let the Word of the Lord continue to establish you in the fullness of His grace and mercy in Christ. Whom the Son sets free is free indeed! THIS is truly the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and THIS is the Gospel we are sent to preach to all.

Organic Church

Sunday morning thoughts:

In I Corinthians 9:22, Paul says, “To the weak I became as the weak, so that I might gain the weak. I am made all things to all men, so that I might by all means save some”. This is what it looks like when God’s grace is manifesting in us and through us! The unconditional acceptance of God through Christ transitions into our acceptance of others according to their needs. This is a way to understand an “organic” church built on the foundation of acceptance grace.In I Corinthians 9:19-23 where Paul talks about “when I am with, I become as”, he may actually be modeling what an organic church looks like. This is a church responsive to the variety of needs found in an increasingly fluid culture. In that church, all the spiritual DNA for the city/community in which it exists is resident even in its embryonic form. However, a “solid” law-driven church will eventually find itself stranded from its culture. Many times its focus is behavior and not belief, growing in numbers and not in grace. It can become a “walled in” community. Organic church, founded on grace, is characterized by “presence among” and flows OUT. John 1:14 describes the Lord’s whereabouts in relation to culture as, “dwelling among… full of grace and truth”. I like the Message Bible’s rendering as well, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood…” This going out, however, is the result of a church environment filled with and focused on the “Word of His grace”; an atmosphere of God’s love and acceptance building us up and bringing us into more and more of our inheritance in Christ. It’s the church as an “airport” where we land, refuel on God’s grace, and take off into culture empowered by the living God – overflowing acceptance and meeting needs redemptively. Acts 11:21 says of such a church that “…the presence of the Lord was with them with power, so that a great number believed and turned and surrendered themselves to Him”. These Scriptures describe a church culture, not structure. A culture bringing Christ near. No wonder it is said of them that “great grace rested richly upon them all”. (Acts 4:33).

Paul says in I Corinthians 9:16 that he felt “compelled of necessity” to go forth and preach the gospel of grace. Why? He explains in II Corinthians 5:14 saying, “the love of Christ controls and urges me”. The Message Bible says it this way, “Christ’s love has moved me to such extremes. His love has the first and last word in everything we do. Our firm decision is to work from this focused center (of His love): One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat”. Since we are loved by God and everything is settled by the finished work of Jesus Christ, we are set free from self-interest for the sake of loving others with abandon.  “As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things!” (Romans 10:15). Preach the grace message and the Lord will form a church culture full of his unconditional acceptance for those in need of His unconditional love. Preach the grace message and signs will follow.

Life Without Training Wheels

Yesterday I read a post on another blog that really seemed to highlight the grace of God in an awesome analogy…an anology of training wheels. Here is an excerpt: “I think the church has raised riding with training wheels to an art form! Christians are not taught that the indwelling Life of Christ will control them and bring balance; they are taught to rely on the external, artificial “balance” of the law. New believers are given a brand new bike (life) and are then indoctrinated into the school of falling. They are not taught to ride, only to avoid falling. So they wobble madly through life, bumping from one training wheel to the other, becoming more and more disenchanted with this gift they’ve been given. Well, shoot, who wants a sucky gift that you can’t even enjoy? That’s why I love Grace. Grace says, just as bikes were never made for training wheels, so then, life wasn’t made for the law. Grace steps in and supercedes our falls because sometimes we just might wipe out in the gravel. Grace is our Older Brother running along side of us and cheering us on as we discover our balance. And, amazingly enough, Grace is the balancing force inside of us, keeping us from falling and rejoicing with us as we discover the freedom of riding. And, even way cooler, Grace will pedal and steer through us if we let Him.” 

Let’s take off ALL the training wheels! Even a “little law” is TOO MUCH! Remember according to Jesus, “a little leaven leavens the whole lump“!

 

Commitment Preaching

“Commitment preaching” or preaching that calls believers into a radical walk with God is a counterfeit without the message of God’s grace activating, motivating, and actually creating that commitment. Through the preaching of the Gospel of grace, the Spirit of God reveals God’s unconditional love and acceptance. By revelation, the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are loved by the Father just as Jesus the Son is. The understanding of this reality then stirs up our love and affection for God. Romans 8:15,16 says, “For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption by which we cry, Abba, Father! The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God”. “Abba Father” is our recognition of and affectionate response to God’s love. It is not a premise by which we “deduce” we are the children of God; it is the power which we know and delight in being the children of God. His love supernaturally activates and compels us to commit ourselves and offer ourselves as living sacrifices. Paul said in Romans 12:1, “In view of (all) the mercies of God, make a decisive dedication of your bodies (presenting all your members and faculties) as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service”. Reasonable service? Yes, but “in view” of something; in view of God’s unconditional acceptance and love found in Christ’s merciful finished work. We are not to labor in order to “muster up” commitment or be “guilted” into appropriate affection for God out of obligation.

Jesus said, “For He (the Holy Spirit) will receive of Mine and will show it to you”. He will show us the Father’s love - the love of God that brought us into our inheritance as God’s sons and daughters. (Romans 1:17). The witness of the Holy Spirit that you are a child of God is not a testimony to a neutral heart with no affection for God’s fatherly love. It is not a witness that draws a logical, cerebral conclusion, generating some “appropriate” affection and committed response. That is not the picture of Romans 8:15-17. No. The witness of the Holy Spirit that you are a child of God is the revelation in you of God’s love and the creation in you of affections for God. Romans 5:2,5 says, “Through Him we also have access by faith into this grace in which we stand…because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us”.

God Of This City

May we stand in faith together no matter what city we have been planted in by God because as surely as God is God there ARE greater things yet to come…greater things still to be done in THIS city! How? By His Spirit in and through us – His sons and His daughters!

Here is the story behind the origin of this song as told by the Irish worship band Bluetree:

“Nov 2006, Bluetree are heading out to Pattaya Thailand to participate in an event arranged by Belfast missionaries living in Pattaya, Thailand called Pattaya Praise. We’ve no expectation of the event; we were just looking for an opportunity to serve somehow.We didn’t know much about it before we left, but Pattaya is a dark place. It’s a small seaside town notorious for it’s sex trade. Throughout our time there we heard countless stories of girls who are bought from their parents for a price, sold to the sex industry at ages as young as 5 years old. Arriving in Pattaya the spiritual climate seems to change, it’s hard to define, but there is a very tangible change. On the bus journey in we’d been our usual cheery selves, but entering Pattaya at 10am and turning on to a street lined by girls ready for business, the bus became very quiet. We’re in total shock. It’s a sunny day but it’s incredible how dark it feels.‘Walking street’ we learn is the epicentre of the sex trade in Pattaya, it’s about a mile long and at night springs to life with neon signs. Thai people are generally conservative in their dress sense — it’s generally considered provocative to bare your shoulders. But on their street the girls are wearing very little, and offering anything you can imagine for a price. It’s easy to look around with human eyes, see the depravity and get angry. You see older men walking hand-in-hand with young girls — as a daddy, that’s hard to take in. It’s easy to get angry, it’s easy to judge — but that’s not our job, so we grit our teeth.

We were in Pattaya to be part of a praise event not far from this street, the soul purpose of which was to worship and show God’s light in a dark place. We wanted to play more than the scheduled slots while we were there, so we found out that one of the bar owners would let us play a worship set in her bar on the proviso that we brought as many from the missions team who would buy coke-a-cola all night. We walk in to the bar which is about the middle of walking street, girls are lined up on the stairs waiting for business. We get set up, we’re really nervous and quite uncomfortable but we kick in to a familiar beat of worship and soon it’s ok. God starts to speak and we started to move in to this spontaneous song. The truth is when you worship in a place, you start to see God’s heart for that place. What would God say to a place like this?

Amidst the depravity God say’s, I’m the God of this City, I’m the King of these people and Greater Thing are Yet to Come, Greater Things are Still to be Done HERE. The song wasn’t written before that night, but we came out of the bar having worshipped with the song that is now the title track of our album — God of this City (Greater things). The song isn’t just for Pattaya — it’s for your city, and it’s true. By faith we must expect that greater things are still to be done.”