The Gospel of Grace

The last two Sundays God has had me preaching a message of grace to the fellowship...the gospel that says that we can do nothing to earn forgiveness, righteousness, love, acceptance, or salvation besides faith alone in Jesus. The gospel of grace is amazing when we really get it because it frees us from living by laws, rules, standards, and opens us up to a love relationship with God. It's interesting how we tell people before they come to Jesus that they can do absolutely nothing to earn salvation besides trusting in Jesus, yet once they do that, and come into the church, we often start giving them a list of things they need to do now. The Christian life was meant to be lived by grace alone, not rules and laws. And only Jesus can live like Jesus, our role is to allow His life to be lived through our life by abiding/resting in Him. This kind of life naturally produces fruit as my orange trees naturally produces their fruit...I have yet to see my orange trees stress out trying to be an orange tree and produce fruit, yet I have often seen in my own life and others Christians this being the case.

There is a reason we are called human-beings, not human-doings. When we learn to be with Him and allow for Him to live His life through our life than doing/fruit bearing is not something we even try to do, rather it's who we are.

One of the great Bible expositors of our time, Martyn Lloyd Jones, once wrote this about the gospel of grace:

The true preaching of the gospel of salvation by grace alone always leads to the possibility of this charge being brought against it. There is no better test as to whether a man is really preaching the New Testament gospel of salvation than this, that some people might misunderstand it and misinterpret it to mean that it really amounts to this, that because you are saved by grace alone it does not matter at all what you do; you can go on sinning as much as you like because it will redound all the more to the glory of grace. If my preaching and presentation of the gospel of salvation does not expose it to that misunderstanding, then it is not the gospel.