Grace To Help

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Comment by Derek Hill on January 16, 2009 at 3:50am

I wrote a comment yesterday, when I tried to add it it disappeared!
So here is another go.

Thankyou Poemia for the inspiration in opening this subject of the grace of God. It is obvious from the comments that it is a great blessing to those who have read it, and it thrills my heart too.

Quite rightly emphasis has been placed on grace being unmerited favour, and that our salvation in Christ is due solely to the grace of God. I would like to add some background to this subject of the grace of God as we explore this theme.

God has revealed Himself to us in His Word, the Bible, and in His creation. In this revelation we find that God not only tells us what He wants us to do, but much more importantly, what HE is and what HE does.

The Word of God is full of the revelation of the Being and Works of God. In this revelation the grace of God is of first importance. This is not because the other perfection's of God are of less importance, they are of equal importance. But if there is no grace from God towards us, then all else only serves to condemn us to despair and eternal punishment.

If you look up the word grace [also the words that go with it like goodness, mercy, love, compassion and so on] in a lexicon you will find there are many references. A valuable thematic study is to look up these references one by one.

There are two major parts to this revelation of the grace of God in his Word:
a] the grace of God in creation
b] the grace of God in salvation.
I want to begin to open up the first here, and then go on to the second in another study.

In times of affluence we tend to forget that all that we are and have comes freely from the grace and love of God. Today in many western nations our cultures and modes of thought have become very secular. In this secular climate of thought we have great difficulty in believing that God is active in grace in us and amongst us as His subjects in His kingdom.

Yet the Word of God declares this to be so and expects us to come to God in trust and exultant praise.

Psalm 100

"Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth,
Worship the LORD with gladness;
Come before Him with joyful songs.
Know that the LORD is God.
It is He who made us, and we are His;
We are His people, the sheep of His pasture.

Enter His gates with thanksgiving
And into His courts with praise;
Give thanks to Him and praise His Name.
For the LORD is good and His love endures for ever;
His faithfulness continues through all generations."

[footnote: in many English translations LORD is put for Yahweh. This is in deference to the Jews who do not pronounce the Name of God because they feel it is too sacred to do so.]

IN Psalm 104 we find a wonderful description of God creating the world, and then caring for every creature.

"How many are you works, O LORD!
In wisdom you made them all;
The earth is full of your creatures.
...
These all look to you
To give them their food at the proper time."

Psalm 36.5-7

"Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens,
Your faithfulness to the skies.
Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,
Your justice like the great deep.
O LORD, you preserve both man and beast.
How priceless is your unfailing love!
Both high and low among men
Find refuge in the shadow of your wings."

Psalm 145.8,9

"The LORD is gracious and compassionate,
Slow to anger and rich in love.
The LORD is good to all;
He has compassion on all He has made."

I'll leave it here to continue in another comment.

Comment by PoemiaDei on January 13, 2009 at 10:54am

I thank you for your comments. Our next message for discussion will be posted shortly. It's entitled "Through Jesus Christ our Lord." It should take us into the timely discussion of the truth that salvation is only through Jesus in light of what has been in the news recently and circulating on U-tube regarding prominent ministers and tv talk show host saying there are may ways to salvation beside Jesus Christ.

Comment by Gail Sims on January 13, 2009 at 9:31am

Hi PoemiaDei, Yes thank God for his grace. You think where would we be without it. Brother we would be no where, no where, but by the grace of God. Gail Sims

Comment by PoemiaDei on January 11, 2009 at 9:20pm

Wonderful, Therese. I like that song too about the blood. "What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus Christ!" Satan can never water it down.

Comment by Theresa on January 11, 2009 at 7:49pm

Amen to that brother PoemiaDei, I mean what can a child do to be his parents child? nothing, absolutely nothing, all he can do is be the parent child, born into his family, he can rebel when he gets older and renounce that he does not want to be the parent child any more, he can say he wants to change his family name, go his way and seperate, my conviction is that it is not going to change the fact of the blood covenant, he is his father's son. I really believe nothing can seperate us from the love of God and that we are his family, nothing, I do not do anything to deserve a gift from my family for christmas or birthday, they just simply give it to me because I am in the family. I love this worship song and it goes like this, Nothing but the blood of Jesus, what can wash away my sins? Nothing but the Blood of Jesus. The churches today need to preach about the grace of God and the Blood of Jesus that was shed for our sins, oh how we need to go back and worship God in spirit and truth. God bless you all!

Comment by PoemiaDei on January 11, 2009 at 7:09pm

Amen, Wally, Sabrina, and Mona! It is my opinion, Wally, there are many, many more who are like you were out there. And the sad thing is they are being fed unceasingly with a distorted Gospel that rarely ever presents the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ as the only effective means of salvation. Instead, they keep on being pushed into do's and don't's and trying and doing their best. True salvation can only come by faith produced only by hearing the true Gospel of grace. Paul calls it "the hearing of faith."

Paul is plain in Galatians 3:2-5: "This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? - Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? ... Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

"Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17), and not by any of these self-righteous and psychological self-boosting religious talks. These talks may motivate confidence in oneself to improve for a while the behaviour of the old nature, if at all possible, but they do not produce the faith (the hearing of faith) in God to bring about transformation into a new creature in Christ.

Comment by sabrina spears on January 11, 2009 at 3:11pm

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Comment by Wally on January 11, 2009 at 2:30pm

Absolutely PoemiaDei, if we could do anything to earn salvation it would be a purchase rather than by Grace. This is what took me years to realize, thinking I could not be forgiven or saved because I did not deserve it and was never able to be good enough. I have come to know that is why I am saved, because I am not good enough and deserve to die, but God provided a means for me to be saved by His divine Grace and all it takes is faith, confession of His Lordship and a commitment to live daily for Him.

Comment by PoemiaDei on January 10, 2009 at 7:36pm

Salvation is by the grace of God. It is absolutely free. Yes, salvation is absolutely free in a world where it is costly to be born and costly to die.

We contribute absolutely nothing to our salvation which involves complete deliverance from spiritual death into spiritual life. As we continue to explore here in Grace To Help the role of the grace of God in our Christian walk from start to finish, our next message for discussion is entitled, From Death into Life.

Comment by PoemiaDei on January 10, 2009 at 11:55am

God bless you, Laban. Thanks for your contribution. True salvation really brings to nothing man's sense of self-help and independence, not only at conversion but all along the Christian walk. The parable Jesus gave about the vine and the branches cannot be more plain about the impossibility of doing anything in the Kingdom without constantly drawing from the life of Christ. And so, we need to recognize, receive, and realize the grace of God in our Christian walk from start to finish.

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