Main Teaching 8: Grace Means Strength

Chapter 8

Grace means Strength

Grace is not forgiveness when you sin … 
but the power, strength or ability to overcome sin
and be transformed into the character of Christ

It may seem like such a small thing, but when God revealed the true meaning of grace to me, it changed so much of my daily life in Christ.

Many think ‘Grace’ means forgiveness or is something like God’s permission to sin without being punished, but that’s not true. Others think it means kindness or favor, or free stuff. But when the bible talks about ‘grace’ it means something so much more, because grace actually means God’s power, strength or ability given to those who are weak and seek his help. It’s basically Paul’s term for the Anointing. So what power? What abilities? What changes come when grace floods our hearts?

Essentially it is the character of Jesus, the fruit of the spirit, and even the spiritual gifts—it also means the blessings released when people use those gifts to bless, heal, comfort, change, transform, protect, guide and refresh God’s people. Like I said, it’s what people often call the Anointing, although Paul didn’t call it that, he called it grace.

Without this empowerment we cannot live overcoming lives as believers … but WITH IT we can overcome all the trials of the entire fallen world and truly be transformed into children of God, resembling him in character and nature. We overcome sin, such as smoking or stealing, not just by sinning willfully and then asking for forgiveness—we are still hurting people and still hurting ourselves—instead grace will empower us to stop smoking, to stop stealing, to change and become more like Jesus.

Being Born Again in this way is greatly misunderstood. There is a difference between being saved by having your sins covered by Christ’s atoning blood … and being CHANGED into his image, putting on the New Self, being a new creation, having a new heart, mind and soul and so overcoming the desire to sin. We can live in forgiveness when we sin from weakness, but we still hurt people, hurt ourselves and therefore cannot walk in the best God has or us. Isn’t it better if we can be empowered to overcome these character flaws and receive mercy for our weakness and strength to change? This is what is available to us when we ask for his help and go boldly to his Throne of Grace.

In fact, after giving me several visions to explain it, he later added that, “There is no strength without grace.” So I began to understand that even personal abilities we don’t consider ‘Christian,’ like sports or musical abilities, medical or military skills, engineering and science aptitude, artistic or creative talent are also given by God through grace. John said WE ALL have received grace after grace through Jesus, even if they don’t know it! This means even people who don’t realize this and so don’t thank him or acknowledge him have been blessed by God. God is good to ALL.

So we find secular geniuses, famous scientists, talented entertainers and ask ourselves, what is the means by which God makes one person good in math, and another talented in music? Is it forgiveness? No, these are talents and gifts in the unsaved community at large. It is not forgiveness, but God does give grace upon grace to ALL MANKIND. However what we will spend our time talking about here is the special graces that God gifts to his Children, the members of his Body: the fruit of the Spirit, spiritual gifts, the power to overcome the world by enjoying the nature of Christ, etc. So the means of imparting a talent, skill or especially in Christians, a spiritual gift, strength of character, etc. is simply the flow or impartation of grace. There is NO strength without grace, but like I said, what we are most concerned with here is this teaching is the strength we need beyond our ‘natural’ personal abilities to help us live as overcoming children of God, that is no mean feat.

So in this short teaching you will learn what exactly Grace really is, why you need it, and where you can freely access it in your time of need.

Two Visions: First, the Room in My Spirit Being Filled

I was going through many personal struggles and I knew God was trying to teach me something about ‘grace’ but it confused me at first because God was not talking about what Man had taught me grace was, which was forgiveness or mercy or favor. What God was talking about was something that was transforming me, maturing me and strengthening me with his character and the fruit of the Spirit. There were two visions over that period that were most clear to me.

First, I went to a large Chinese church in Hong Kong one evening, which was my first time there. The ministry team prayed for everyone in the service, laying hands on each of us to impart God’s anointing and blessings to them. As a few hundred of us lined up in front of the room, I asked the Lord if I could go first because I had no one to translate for me and didn’t really understand most of the message, but I was shuffled around and ended up being placed right in the middle of the front row that stretched right across the front of the stage and up both side aisles. But the preacher who was leading the prayer ministry team looked left and right and then looked right at me right in the middle of that throng and sure enough I was the first person they prayed for. When they laid hands on me I felt the presence of God flow over me and I opened my heart to receive God’s blessing for me and I quickly had a vision of an angel above my head, basically standing directly over me and he looked strong and angular, tough and serious actually, and he spoke and said the Father wanted to talk with me in heaven! This was before I was able to have so many open conversations with him, and I basically misunderstood his offer.

We had published 40 Days in Heaven already and I heard many other testimonies of people having heavenly visitations and I wanted to go see heaven myself also, so I eagerly said, “Ok!” and waited. I said again, “Um… OK, yes. I want to … can I … Can you hear me? Yes!”

But after a few minutes nothing apparently happened, so I asked him, the angel I mean, when was I going, and he said I was already there.

WHAT??!! I got really disappointed but kept my eyes closed and my heart focused on the Spirit of God and since they were still praying for a lot of people I just sat down on the floor to stay in God’s presence and concentrate because I was not able to sense anything of the conversation or visit in heaven I was apparently having! Was I having a heavenly visitation without any consciousness or awareness of the experience; it really made me feel bad.

So I complained, ‘You know, I really am ready to go to see heaven,’ in case God didn’t know that but I immediately heard the Lord reply and say, “No, you’re not!” and I was shown my spiritual insides—it was a hollow space—what I thought of was one of those hollow gem stones, called a geode, that inside is filled with crystals like purple amethysts. It was a small hollow space but it was being slowly filled from the outside in with layer upon layer of some substance like pearlescent paint or again with amethyst-like mineral.

I understood from 1 Corinthians 8:1-3 that knowledge puffs up (makes a hollow space inside of us) but the experience of God’s love fills up that space, literally, builds us up. I had lots of knowledge and so had a hollow, open space in my spirit-man … and now I guess it could be filled up solid … but this strange substance that was coming from God was filling me up very slowly, like one layer of paint at a time, and although it was still mostly hollow, there was a transfer of that amethyst-like material into me that was slowly but surely becoming a part of me.

And I didn’t understand it at the time, or have any verses explaining it to me yet, but I knew somehow when I saw it that this ’stuff’ was called ‘grace.’

I can now see how knowledge of the Bible comes first like a road map as we HEAR, but then if we diligently desire and seek to DO what we have heard, we gain the strength and ability to live out what the Bible talks about. In this we must come to experience God and this personal interaction (intimacy) causes us to be filled up with a substance from Him, a substance that IS him, and as we receive more of His Life into us, we are continually transformed into his character and image the more we are built up in Love.

I also now see it like food. If I eat a meal the food soon BECOMES my body. My skin, bones and organs are made up of the food I once ate. You are what you eat. This is like the Lord’s Spirit which is our spiritual food, that we ‘eat’ when we open our hearts to him, worship him, read the bible, spend time fellowshipping with him, etc., and his Spirit nurtures us and in a way ‘becomes us’—As a man thinks in his heart so is he—So we are in a state of growth and transformation BECOMING conformed into his Image, his nature, becoming transformed into Children of God in character. The TWO are becoming ONE.

Again this substance that was filling me and making me solid is FROM HIM but it also IS HIM. He certainly didn’t buy it on ebay. It is His Spirit. Paul called it charis, or grace.

Second Vision: Literal Access to God’s Throne of Grace

Secondly, and shortly afterwards, I had a friend who I was mentoring who was in our church ministry group and she also lived nearby. A little ambitious I suppose and bossy, one day she decided she wanted to take over the ministry. We had dealt with that spirit several times previously and knew what was manifesting immediately, control and rebellion. But I also had a dream of her trying to ‘smear’ me in betrayal and realized God had already warned me. She began to recruit the other ladies in the group to follow her and would take them out of the small meeting as soon as the worship was done to disrupt the ministry training, prophesying, teaching and sharing, quenching the Spirit but what was worse was the gossip. She began to say things about us behind our backs to the other ladies to accuse us of money problems, dishonestly, openly telling the ladies they should not follow me, and other personal insults, most of which were 100% false. I went to the Lord immediately and when I put the case before him he said if I play things right I will come out of this smelling like roses! But some days it was all I could do not be overcome with anger and resentment.

I was in prayer and God said for me to rest, but I know I can sleep for 12 hours and wake up still tired because it’s not physical rest I needed but spiritual strength. So I would go up into the forest to pray, go under a small footbridge over a cool mountain stream and just spend enough time in the presence of God’s Spirit to stop being angry and regain my peace.

So again I was soaking under the bridge, trying to get this impartation of his strength and I felt myself go to a large open space in the heavenly realm. First I saw a large person, which I soon realized was the Lord, and I began to recognize his presence. He was in front of a large throne, and by ‘large’ I mean he looked as big as a skyscraper and everything was YELLOW. I looked around and there were a lot of people and then he spoke, “You have now come to the Throne … of Grace.” My vision faded but he still spoke, and said we’ve all been here if we’ve ever asked God for strength, even if we can’t ‘see’ it, that’s where we are. Then he said cheerfully, “Bring people here.”

When I understood this idea more fully I brought this teaching to our ministry group and we prayed for the everyone to have strength not to be proud, rebellious, selfish, whatever was the weakness we had that let Satan tempt us to sin. We prayed for each other to overcome and in the process the rift, the growing split in the group was healed before it erupted.

Later people repented for their actions without being reprimanded and the leader of the split was ashamed and after a time alone to deal with her feelings also restored our friendship. On my own I did not know how to deal with what would have been a major split. Instead of having a big argument and exposing and expelling the rebels in the group, we prayed to release grace to change the hearts of minds of people going astray and it turned around for all of our benefit and I did come out smelling like roses!

Strength to Win A Battle

So consider this: when you are in a battle and a certain kind of strength is needed to win, and you lack that strength, what does it look like as you fail that battle?

Suppose the battle was one that you needed Love to win, and if you didn’t have enough love to win that battle, you’d fail. Or what if to overcome a battle you needed Joy? Or peace, patience or any kind of emotional or spiritual strength of character?

What would it look like if you failed that test?—slipping into anger, rage, hopelessness, selfishness, ambition, revenge, pride, … and then whatever else you fell into to relieve your stress at your first failure … faking your victory by play acting (hypocrisy), hiding behind a mask of pride (self-righteousness) or less religious sins: drunkenness, lust, pornography, adultery, drug use, or the utter darkness of self harm, suicide … the list goes. Not a pretty picture really! But is this the kind of rare battle that only professional counselors, ministers or superheroes of the faith encounter? No, I think this is a scene from any of our daily lives.

So suppose you get a phone call at midnight, and it’s THAT PERSON! Yes, you know who I am talking about—that one who you frankly can’t stand. If you were honest you’d admit your feelings are closer to hate. Maybe it’s your neighbor, co-worker, relative … or your ex! It’s that one who is always making your life so hard. Then without warning they are in real need and they call you for help they just do not deserve, and suddenly the battle is on—will you love them or not? They’ve been talking about you, throwing trash in your lawn, stealing from you, gossiping about you, sleeping with your best friend, and now they’re calling you in tears and asking for your help. Will you overcome your hatred and love them? It’s a battle. Will the answer be, “You’re getting what you deserve! Good!” BANG—as you slam down the phone—or now I guess you just touch the off button very emphatically—I mean will you stick it to them! Or will you let Christ be Christ through you to meet their need?

Wow!

Let’s get right to the critical issue of your victory: What do you need at this moment to overcome and win this battle? You need strength. But what kind of strength do you need? Physical strength? Money? Good looks? What strength do you really need at this moment to win this battle?

The Apostle Paul Called this Strength ‘Grace’

So after I had these visions I hit the books, well, the e-books—I first looked up ‘grace’ in my bible app dictionary and found that the word we read in English as ‘grace’ is ‘charis’ and it has four different meanings. First it means to be kind. That’s how we usually understand it. Second, it means to give something for free, and like it, third, it means the free gift you just gave.

So you can say, “Because of my grace, I graced you with the grace of a cup of coffee! Enjoy!”

But there was a fourth meaning of the word my dictionary said, which is the word Paul used to describe the POWER of God. Amazing!! It is from this that we get the words charismatic, charisma and charismata, meaning the power gifts of the spirit. This opened the eyes of my understanding to what God was trying to teach me in those visions because like I said I never hear a man preach this correctly to me.

Paul was obviously very familiar with the flow of God’s Spirit and the presence of God given to empower his children, but I had no clear verses on this. It’s because we normally call this flow and tangible presence of the Holy Spirit the “anointing,” right? But go look up the word ‘anointing’ in Paul’s writings and you will see something odd. Paul almost never used that word! Paul was certainly very familiar with the flow of God’s Spirit, God’s energizing presence and the supernatural strength God gives his people who cry out for help … but Paul just didn’t call it the ‘anointing,’ he called it GRACE.

So yes God is kind and is giving us many free gifts, but in this sense, grace means Power, divine energizing, supernatural strength, certainly not forgiveness to keep sinning, or permission to ignore his commands because they are too hard to obey.

Sing Spiritual Songs

A lot of our popular theology is shared and taught through contemporary Christian music, and I am so thankful for it! But we sing so many songs about Grace, simply because it rhymes with ‘face;’ or we sing about ‘Love’ because it rhymes with ‘above,’ but what are we actually teaching people about these supernatural manifestations of God, and is it inspired or correct revelation, or is it just catchy lyrics?

Worse, the idea that ‘grace’ means ‘forgiveness’ is by far the most common, intended and obvious meaning in our popular music. These ‘preachers’ are teaching an incorrect, earthly understanding of divine mysteries and it’s not good. They are catchy tunes, sure, but it’s just not true. Keep writing good tunes, but let’s also try to teach people the truth.

Maybe having so many different meanings of ‘grace’ is meant to protect this revelation from the carnal mind? You know, keep it secret, keep it safe? Or maybe it’s the Devil trying to deceive us? Keep us in the dark? Keep us ignorant and weak? Maybe a bit of both. But yes, while you can correctly say “Because of God’s grace he graced us with his grace.” Isn’t it more clear to say, “Because of God’s kindness, he freely gifted us with the power of his Spirit.” Yes, I think that’s much better!

And why would God do this? Why give us grace? It’s to enable us to act in the character of Christ, to be empowered to love unlovable people, to empower us with supernatural gifts to help others in ways only God can, to give us a strength in our hearts to trust God in difficult times, to give us energy to not quit when it’s tough, to heal us, to give us divine wisdom to solve problems, to prophesy secrets to us so we can have success in many endeavors … there are a lot of reasons why we need God’s help! And God is so pleased to give us the help we need!

So whatever we cannot do in our own carnal, natural strength, we need his grace for. This is the promise of Emmanuel, God with Us; this is the promise of the Kingdom! This key of Grace opens doors of endless possibilities. Even the sky is not the limit if we can access God’s love, money and power—yes he told me it even includes money—but maybe we’ll get to that later.

Some Key Verses

Let’s look at some verses to see this in the Bible. First, let’s look at the ceremony of the bread and wine. Is God’s power in the ceremony, or in the elements themselves? What does the Bible say?

So Grace strengthens our hearts when we receive it. (Ceremonial foods on the other hand do not!).

Paul knew the power of God was not his own personal stamina. He even said a few times he knew when the strength that he acted in and kept him going was not even his strength!

Grace has an effect, it causes tangible change, is not just some record in heaven or God’s private decision to forgive you. So Paul said Grace made him what he was, it was the energy in him causing him to work so effectively and tirelessly. Paul often talks about Grace in this way as being ‘with’ him, ‘in’ him or ‘given to’ him.

You see, people cry out to God for strength to make it through myriad problems every day. Is there any crisis God will not help you with? No, he will come to your aid in EVERY situation, and give you the help you ask for, even sometimes the help you didn’t even know you needed! Why? Because God is good, and also because he is glorified when you reveal his strength on earth through your actions. You are meant to be an Oak Tree of Righteousness, displaying his splendor. How can you do this?

So grace is the empowerment to serve in whatever role God has called you to; to overcome whatever situation you find yourself in. What do you need to do EVERY good work? Patience, Joy, Peace, Gentleness, Love … in measure beyond the normal limits of human emotions. This empowering actually includes ALL that you need, yes it includes finances, skills, and other material things, but the primary strength you need is not material … it is his supernatural love in you, towards you, then through you to the world.

The problem smart people have who have faith in man’s wisdom is acting in their own wisdom and not seeking the higher thoughts, the higher ways of the Lord, especially when they teach the scared mysteries of the Bible. They end up teaching man’s ways, man’s ideas from the Flesh instead of the revelation of the Holy Spirit because their identity is in man’s wisdom, not as a friend of God who sits at his feet and learns from him, who is Humble. How low do you have to go to be able to sit at the feet of a humble man like Jesus and learn his deep secrets? Pretty low!

So these kinds of people who are gifted and capable in the natural realm, those who have a natural human strength, find this strength often becomes a source of pride and they do not humble themselves to seek God’s even higher wisdom, or strength or healing and so they fail. This is true for any human strength, which therefore becomes a weakness to us serving God. In our weakness, however, we humbly seek God’s help freely, nothing stands in our way to ask for his help! And so we can get empowered with supernatural help in our weakness, so with him, our weakness becomes a strength.

This is the secret Paul discovered:

Paul asked for his painful circumstance to be removed but God decided instead to leave it there . . . but instead to make Paul stronger.

If you think grace means forgiveness … this verse makes no sense at all! But when you understand grace is the power or strength of God, Oh it’s just so obvious!

But maybe the strongest link between lacking Grace and so failing a battle where being like Christ in character is needed is this:

This is a major insight. Key words all: Missing the grace, allowing a root of bitterness to grow, many are defiled.

If you are hurt, fearful, stubborn, prideful, you will make trouble for a lot of people. You can’t help it you say! The color yellow triggers me! I hate Mondays! Well, I always get nasty when I have my period! I just need a few beers before I can calm down! … But what if instead you could find the grace of God and not miss it, and heal that frustration, calm that hyper-reactive trigger, find peace without the alcohol? The roots of bitterness within us can be enlarged, or they can be removed. It’s depends on whether you feed into it, or ask God to remove it by his grace. Not just forgiving you so you can keep on smoking, drinking, fighting, hurting people and being generally nasty … but to restore your wounded heart so you no longer harbor these destructive behaviors and appetites within you.

The real purpose of ministry is actually to release the grace of God, usually by laying on hands and praying, to heal the broken hearted, release those in bondage and help open their blind eyes so they can behold the glory of the Lord and he transformed into his image. Isaiah 61 is the goal of our ministry. Jesus told me it is the model of our new life. The impartation of Grace, the flow of the anointing, is what accomplishes this glorious ministry and the outcome is that we can possess the Kingdom in our hearts.

There are many other key verses about Grace being the source of our spiritual and personal gifts (Romans 12:6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.), about Grace being ministered to other people when we use these gifts (1 Peter 4:10 Each one should use whatever gift he has to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.), and Grace being the transforming power and strength that causes us to resemble Christ more and more each day.

Grace is the power or strength of God given to us to overcome, be transformed and help comfort the fallen world. It is the anointing; charis does not means forgiveness, but power.

Grace is Given to the Humble, not only the ‘good’

Then cutting to the quick of our prideful hearts, how do you get grace? Who gets it? The only good? Well, aren’t the sick the ones who need a doctor?

Well, we can read James 4:1-12 and learn a lot. James is pulling no punches, not making it easy to avoid the issue.

Here we see God’s provision for our temptations is not first punishment, but more Grace to overcome these temptations, weaknesses and challenges. Grace is however only given to the Humble. Also we see that if we but resist the devil, he will flee, not because there is anything from our resistance that he is afraid of, but because our WILL is energized by God’s POWER in us, literally God’s presence or Spirit in us, and THAT drives the enemy away. Our Will, God’s Power.

What sinners need is grace, not just forgiveness so they can keep going on hurting people, but strength so they can stop. Yes, they need forgiveness from you too so you will see their need and help them to overcome. Like I said, God sees sinners and sees their need of his help, we see sinners and see reasons why God should punish them. God sees things a little differently than we do.

This then explains a higher understanding of being Born Again. We are forgiven when we repent and get ‘saved.’ But then we have to start to grow and the goal of our walk is to become transformed into the image of Christ. If we can do this we can have an increasing intimate fellowship with him because we are like him and how can two walk together unless they are agreed? What fellowship does light have with darkness? Being Born Again, not from perishable seed, but the eternal spirit of God is a CHANGE. The process of maturity is a transformation. Ceremonies and religious habits have no benefit, what matters is a new creation. We need to put off the old self and put on the new self that is made in the incorruptible image of Christ.

How can we effect such a supernatural, spiritual change as this? What do we need to be TRANSFORMED into his likeness? Ceremonies, better habits, religious jewelry and quoting fancy sayings will not do it. We need the actual power that resurrected Christ from the dead to be at work in us to resurrect us into his divine nature. THIS is the power of Grace.

Being ‘good’ to earn grace?

No. Grace given to you so you can be ‘good’

So maybe we can now understand this means we don’t need to be extra good to get help. It’s when we face a huge challenge and are in over our heads, failing a battle we can’t win that we need to find HELP, FAST! And that help is given because of Jesus’ priesthood, His sacrifice on our behalf, his atoning sacrifice, yes that’s all WHY. But the point is we can go to Him and He will help us overcome, not because we are good, but only because we ask.

So people who wrestle with sin run from God. In fact we are allowed to go into God’s presence because we are in need, failing the tests, losing the battles of patience, kindness, humility, love, peace, gentleness … struggling with alcohol, pornography addiction, crimes, drug use … we can go into God’s presence in our weakness to get his help because that’s when we need it the most!

We find that we need to humble ourselves, repent first of our pride and selfish will to approach Him, but once you do you can come into his presence with confidence that he will help you. In His Presence seeking his help we are guaranteed to be strengthened, and so our victory is assured. We can find both mercy (forgiveness) and strength (ability) at his Throne of Grace.

And like I said above, I saw his Throne of Grace—it’s HUGE! And everything was yellow, but I don’t know why. Someone told me that yellow is the color of grace. Well, I don’t know if that’s always true, maybe, Jesus didn’t tell me that yet, but it is what I saw! And there were so many people in the area in front of him soaking in his empowering grace. And he told me, “Bring people here!” So that’s what I’m doing now. Helping you find your way into his provision of grace to receive mercy and strength in your time of need.

Supply and Demand

I saw a vision of God one time and I saw his two arms: one was a WATERFALL pouring out like a river of blessings, supply, provision and grace. It was all of God’s river of life, all help, anointing, kindness, provisions gushing like a waterfall in an over-abundance of supply to us.

His other arm, his left arm, was extended in a gesture to say NO! I felt like testing his firmness and his arm would not even budge a little if you hung all your weight on it! When he makes up his mind and says, NO! … NO means NO! On the other hand, literally, he was giving, giving, giving in an exuberant over-abundance of every kind of supply and provision you can name. God opens a door no one can shut, and shuts a door no one can open.

I saw his grace another time flowing like a giant waterfall. Imagine how much water you need when you are thirsty. One cup? Two? A liter? A gallon? The waterfall was flowing in maybe millions of gallons a minute. It was FAR, FAR MORE supply than we ever could need or use. His grace … is more than enough!

This also means his help is not only ‘on the way’ but since he foresees our needs, his help is ready before we need it. I’ve begun to pray for help and as I inhale to speak, he answers me some times before I call on him!

Not only that, but like I said before some problems take us by surprise and we have seconds before we yell at someone, turn down their request for help, give into fear, doubt, unbelief … since we don’t always have days or months to prepare for a situation, then the grace needed to be wise, calm, brave and patient so we can overcome EVERY attack thrown at us must also be available to us within seconds. On demand. In real time. In a continual flow of supply.

Put these two ideas together, that the supply of grace is an over-abundance and that God foresees our needs before they arise and prepares to meet the need before we even call on him for help, and the true idea of grace will change how you think, how you pray and how you face difficult situations from now on. How can it not change your very outlook on life?

Be ‘Good,’ But Don’t Fall Into A Trap

One more thing I heard God say on this area, is that while there are many benefits to behaving ‘good,’ it can also become a trap. If we behave well, it is easier for us to pray and commune with God because we have less baggage, less shame and guilt. If our hearts condemn us, we have no confidence to pray to God. But God is greater than our conscience. Behaving well means we hurt people less, we reinforce fewer bondages, fuel fewer addictions within us. We are not so much a part of the problem as we are when we are behaving badly.

We should strive to behave well. But there are two problems.

Having a confidence in our ability to be ‘good’ is a problem. This leads us to a self-righteous pride and we no longer seek the empowering grace of God to mature. We stop repenting, we look down on people who are struggling.

Second, we can only push ourselves so far until we run out of steam. Jeremiah was ready to quit and God said, so sad! You’re worn out running against men … how will you run against horses? God can empower us to run this kind of superhuman race, not like it’s a burden to us he’s forcing us to do in our strength. How can you run against horses? Only with your grace, Lord!

So consider this in regard to your attitude as you mature. If you are trying to be good enough to perfect yourself in God’s eyes, Christ’s cross has lost its power for you, Christ is no longer of any value to you, and you have become ‘cut off’—alienated from Him; FALLEN FROM GRACE. (Galatians 5:4). Cut off from the supply of his empowering strength. Now what are you going to do? Supernatural exploits in your strength? Transform yourself into Christ’s image on your own with a 12-step program? Pray for healing and then answer your own prayers?

Jesus told me goodness can become a snare for some people especially if they cannot understand their goodness is not the goal of Christianity, Christ-likeness is. Emmanuel, God-with-us, is. To restore us to where we would have been had there been no fall in the garden is. Human goodness, discipline and religious habits cannot substitute for the active living presence of God in our lives. But people who gain a confidence in the flesh can easily succumb to this deceptive trap.

Why do we only get help in a crisis?

I love thrill rides, I get dizzy sometimes, but nothing beats a good roller-coaster. However, I don’t want to LIVE ON ONE! Another annoying habit people have is always getting into a crisis before they call on God for help. Sometimes you can’t avoid it, trouble comes knocking at the door. Sometimes trouble comes rushing in like a FLOOD. That’s the way it is sometimes. But Jesus was not in a crisis when he walked on water, got his taxes paid out of a fish’s mouth, found dinner set for the last supper for him and his disciples, fed thousands more than once from only a handful of provisions. He walked in miracles because it was easy! Easier than doing things the natural way! So why do why do we only seem to get help from God when we are in a crisis?!!

It’s because that’s the only time we believe God will help us!!

It’s because that’s the only time we ask God for real help!

It’s because that’s the only time we stop trying to solve problems in our own strength, wisdom and finances. God’s grace even includes money he told me! Seriously?! ALL things at ALL times, having ALL that you need, so we can abound in every good work.

We don’t need to be in a crisis to get God’s help. Maybe I already had many failures and learned my lessons. Good, now I can share it with you so you can avoid my mistakes and don’t have to learn everything the hard way! It is better to learn through the school of hard knocks or isn’t it easier to be taught wisdom and avoid all the headaches?

Most yes, people have to try their best … fail … and only then do they finally understand the need for God’s grace. You don’t need to fail to find God’s grace, you don’t need to be in a desperate crisis, but facing such stress and fear is a sure way to motive you to find that grace!! If you know it’s available. But in fact it’s always available, even before the crisis!! It’s available BEFORE you fail, but most people don’t bother to seek it that last desperate moment! Or after!

Why do people wait until they hit rock bottom to pray for help? “All we can do now is pray!” the unsaved say. Yeah, maybe lead with that next time and can get help BEFORE there’s a crisis! Well, have it your way. But God’s flow of grace is available now, it’s just maybe your pride is preventing you from asking for it. What does James 4:6b say:

I think it’s wisdom to learn this key now BEFORE you have a crisis and save all of us the drama!

So yes, try your best. Seek to overcome. But when you realize your strength, even your will is not strong enough, ask God for the help you need. He will give it you. Then you can test and prove his grace is WITH you making you work harder than them all!

So this is why I say when you figure this out, you will pray completely differently.

When you hit a brick wall, you know there is a way through, and that God will give it to you! When you find a behavior lurking in your deceptive heart that is truly evil, you know there is way to change and overcome it. Your growth will speed up because you can now seek to make your salvation sure, and your character transformed by HIS power at work in you!

We cannot earn the fruit of the spirit.

We get this fruit by grace through our trust or ‘faith,’ not by earning it because of our ‘good works.’

It’s not because you are ‘good’ that you get grace, in fact you need the grace so you can be ‘good’ in the first place.

In fact to think that we can earn these things by our good deeds is silly. We need these things to do the good deeds that please the Lord in the first place!

So clearly ‘grace’ is not the permission to sin, it is the gift of power or the strength of His character given to us to overcome the struggles of life—without sinning.

And if such a great provision as the power of God to transform us into the very likeness of Christ has been afforded to us because we are believers in Jesus, then how great is the goodness of God! How deep his love for us! How rich his inheritance to us his saints! Hallelujah!

Finally, I’m listing some key ‘grace’ scriptures I mentioned above here at the end of this teaching for your easy reference, but if you have time look up the word ‘grace’ in the New Testament and you’ll find a dozen or more other verses that shed even more light on this amazing gift to the Bride of Christ.

But people often miss the grace of God simply because they do not understand it. Please share this idea, explain these verses, tell them these revealed truths. There is no reason for people to miss the grace of God that has been so freely given to us!

Grace and Peace to you by personally knowing Jesus! Amen!

Key Grace Verses