GRACE

I saw a sign in front of a church recently that said this,
"God loves everyone, but he probably prefers the fruits of the spirit over the religious nuts".

At first I read it and didn't get it, but as I read it over, I began to feel a bit of a spirit of judgement come over me.
I began thinking of all the ways in which I thought the sign was wrong and I began to wonder about the person who thought it up and the congregation that belongs to that church and how they must have some hurts going on etc, etc, etc.

I had to stop myself from judging and in doing so, I am aware at how familiar that spirit of judgment is to me.

The sign suggests that God has preferences.
And yet, if you open up God's word you will find a specific word that says that this thought is a lie
.
The word is "GRACE".
You will find this word well over one hundred times in different books of the Bible. I am challenged this morning to dig deep and find each place "grace" is mentioned and listen with my spirit to God's word about God's word.
Don't worry, I am not about to take that on in this entry, just for my own personal understanding!

Did you know that there is no better authority on God's word than God's word?
I came across these two verses earlier on this year and for whatever reason, I felt compelled to highlight them, wanting to remember this truth.
Romans 2:11, For God does not show favoritism, and Ephesians 6:9, and there is no favoritism with Him(Him being God).
There is NO favoritism in Him!
There is however favouritism in me if I am totally honest.
I judge, I favour, I love conditionally, I pick and choose based on how someone treats me, I ignore and if I am really honest I would have to say, I have hated.
I could go on and on, but I will spare you the details as this is not about me.
This is about the grace that was offered to me on the cross.
If the sign is true and God prefers one type of person over another; then Jesus died for nothing.
Jesus being fully man and fully God(I could spend days just writing about the divinity and humanity of Jesus, but I won't), surrendered to His Heavenly Father and became the substitution, the sinless sacrifice necessary to grant freedom from the wages of sin, which is death, (Romans 6:23) to ALL who call upon the name of the Lord, (Acts 2:21)
If you are so inclined, here are some scriptures that speak into this incredible offer available for all....Psalm 86:5, Psalm 145:18 and Romans 10:12.
There is no one discluded from the invitation.
Does that mean everyone will be with God one day?
Well, that would be a topic for another blog entry.
However, suffice it to say for now, that only God knows the beginning from the end and so it goes without saying that He knows who will accept His offer and who will turn their face from or shake their fist at His offer....and yet He keeps offering the gift.

Back to the sign and to grace.......
Why is it so hard to receive grace from God through Jesus?
Is it because grace is undeserved and humanly speaking it doesn't make sense?
Is it because grace is unmerited and we as humans can't work for it and "working for it" is so familiar to us?
Is it because according to this world it is so..........outrageous?
Grace says, "I love and accept you based solely on grace, not on you!"
God's grace is beyond our comprehension; outside of our human understanding and thinking.
In order to understand God's grace, we need the Spirit of God to teach us; to reveal it to us.
God is Spirit (Jn 4:24) and the Bible teaches us that His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.
Jesus is truth (John 14:6), God's word is truth (John 17:17), Jesus is the Word(Jn1:1).
Through Jesus, I am restored back into a relationship with God, which makes a way for my spirit to receive God's truth which comes from God's word, spoken to me by His Holy Spirit.
Without Jesus, God's word, the Bible, is just another book with some good moral teaching, some great poetry, songs and fun stories.
The Bible is God's story....His-story, a love story. (John 3:16)

The fruits of the spirit as written about in Galatians 5:22-23 are (love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, kindness, self control and faithfulness).
These fruits are the very character and likeness of God Himself. God is all of these things and so much more.
For example, He is just, the only just judge, which takes me back to my own issues with passing judgment on people.
Grace teaches that God, with equal fervor and passion, loves a man like Paul Bernardo exactly the same as He loves a woman like Mother Teresa.
And because of that love, offers grace to both without limit.
How do you feel about that?
In other words, there is no favouritism in Him!
None!
Jesus acceptance of me came on the cross, but He does not accept my sin. Jesus doesn't measure sin on a scale as He knows all sin leads to death. It's just in our humanness that we try to justify the world we live in and our own actions by measuring sin on a scale. If I could see sin as God sees sin, I would weep at the lie I told last week. I only did it because I didn't want to hurt someone's feelings (that's me justifying what I did).
I want to be honest today, admitting that I don't really in my humanness understand the "wages" of sin.
"For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known"(1Corinthians 13:5).

I do know that Jesus hates my sin and the cross is the measure of that hatred. (Oswald Chambers)

"Greater love has no one than this; that He lay down His life for His friends. You are my friends, if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit.....fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other. John 15:13-17
Or....maybe you have a message Bible, if so, I would encourage you to look this scripture up in that version, it gives a fresh word on this awesome word. Or, if you are very adventurous you can go to www.biblegateway.com and check it out in hungarian if you so choose!!!!

In closing, I have had to tell God how sorry I am for my default that is so judgemental and ask Him for a greater measure of kindness in my spirit, or maybe I need a greater measure of goodness, or maybe self control, or maybe gentleness or love or joy or peace or faithfulness or patience (now there's a biggie!!)
No matter how I look at my life, I am fully aware that I need God......I need His Son Jesus Christ and I need to be fully surrendered, which simply means to give up or relinquish or yield to His will for my life.
How can I know His will for my life?
Well, I can accept His Son as my Lord and Saviour through the forgiveness of my sin and invite Him to come into my heart and save me.
Then I can pick up His written word (the Bible) and there I can meet the Living Word (Jesus), who will teach me in my spirit what God, who is Spirit, is wanting to say to me specifically for my unique life.
How will He do that??
By His Holy Spirit that has come to live in my heart!
I can't explain the logistics to you, all I can say is this, "For it is by GRACE you have been saved, through faith...and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God...not by works so that no one can boast." Ephesians 2:8-9

Today, I think I will ask someone who knows me well, and by that I mean knows me even when I am not at my best, and ask them to do a fruit inspection on me.
Maybe there is the odd piece of bad fruit that is spoiling the rest. The thing about bad fruit, is that you don't know its there until you do a little digging in the fruit bowl. I have occasionally picked out a piece of fruit that looks good and yet because it is sitting next to a bad peice, has become rotten.

Thank you God for your merciful grace.
Thank you.

Love Tracy whom some reading this, might call a religious nut!
Just remember, religion is about rules....faith in Jesus Christ is about a beautiful relationship!!!!!
Its all about GRACE!!