SAVED BY GRACE

SAVED BY GRACE

                “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast, for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:8-10

                When someone says that they are saved by grace, I delightfully concur, but I find myself wanting to qualify what they mean as well. It is not that we can add a single thing to our salvation by grace, but it is rather that our evolving definition of grace needs qualification.

                Our definition of grace goes all the way back to the first Passover, for it was there that salvation by grace was defined for us.

1.       They were saved by the blood on their door posts. They were saved by putting the blood on their door posts quite apart from any goodness or badness on their part. But they did have to obey God enough to paint the blood on their door post.

2.       They were required to eat the entire lamb including its head and entrails (probably meaning internal organs) along with bitter herbs.

                This then is where salvation by grace gets its twofold definition. We are saved by the blood of the Lamb quite apart from any goodness on our part, but this salvation is accompanied, by the fact that we must take the lamb inside of us in order to have strength for the journey.

                And this is why people quote our opening text: (For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves for it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, that no one should boast;” but we tend to ignore the second part where it says: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

                So when we read the whole text and not just part of it, we see both the blood and the body of Christ being applied to grace. The blood covers the first part (For by grace we are saved through faith) and the body covers the second part where if we partake of Christ then we will walk in the good works that He has prepared for us that we should walk in them.

                Let me try to give us an example of how grace is misapplied in many circles today. Let us say that we are sick and so we go to the doctor. He discovers that we have an infection, so he gives us an antibiotic. So we stick the antibiotic in our pocket and then we go around to all of our friends, proclaiming that we are no longer sick. We have been given an antibiotic quite apart from works and we keep taping our pocket to ensure that we have been saved by the antibiotic and we keep claiming it and believing it and we deny that we are sick and even when fever overtakes us we boldly hang on to our faith and we keep claiming our healing even though we have never actually swallowed the antibiotic that could have saved us.

                Likewise we go around with the blood of Jesus in our pocket while claiming that we are saved by grace… never mind that we are still living in sin and that it overcomes us at every turn. But grace is a two part antidote. We are saved by the blood of the Lamb, but we must also eat the lamb… we must take the medicine in if it is going to transform our lives and get rid of the infection that is destroying us.

                It is not legalism to take the pill. It is not legalism to eat the Lamb so that we can walk by its power. It is not legalism to obey the doctor and take the medicine. Legalism is when you try to do good works without eating the lamb. You are living by flesh power and not by the power of Christ. That is legalism.

                This then is one of those fundamental strands of DNA that will correct our faulty doctrine of grace. The church has lost much of its power in the world today and in fact much of the church is heading straight into the New World Order and the Mark of the Beast system because they are carrying grace around in their pockets without really living by the power of Christ that could set them free.

                Many avoid the Holy Spirit, or anything having to do with the Holy Spirit, beyond using His name in the baptism of John. They ignore that Jesus came to baptize us in the Holy Spirit and fire. And so they make water baptism an end in itself and they ignore what the Bible has to say about receiving the Holy Spirit and fire into and upon us and how it is manifested in our lives.

                There are 9 spiritual gifts listed in 1 Cor. 12:1-11. These are supernatural gifts. This is not talking about natural talent, even though our God give talents may give us an indication as to which Spiritual gift will be poured out upon us. But these gifts are supernatural and they are enabled by the Holy Spirit within and upon us. It also says that He,(The Holy Spirit) gives us these gifts as He wills, not as we will it. So when we tell the Holy Spirit that we will accept this gift, but not that one then we are being directed by the flesh rather than by the Spirit of God. So when the church is thusly equipped, every member being a living stone and not a dead brick, the church becomes a living organism… a functioning body, with Christ as the head and every part functioning under the direction and power of His Holy Spirit.

                In today’s church we see a whole lot of bricks along with a hand full of living stones that carry the entire load of ministry. Sometimes even the pastors are bricks and the congregation languishes, for without vision and power the people perish.

                Jesus said: “I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly.” John 10:10. This life we receive by eating Him, by taking Him in internally. Even His blood must be taken internally, for we can see from nature the function of blood. It carries oxygen and nutrients to every cell of our body and it removes carbon dioxide and dead cells and other impurities and flushes them out. The life is in the blood and we know very well that if your blood ends up on the outside of you, you will die very quickly. The blood and the body of Christ must be inside of us doing its work in us. This is the work of salvation that Jesus brought to us. We enter into this salvation through His cross, where we die to our flesh and come alive by His Spirit and so we live from then on by His Spirit and not by our flesh.

                There can be no such thing as a casual Christian. If you have partaken of Christ so that His flesh strengthens you and His blood imparts life to you, then you are a new creature and you live by Christ and Christ alone through His Holy Spirit. And we live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. It is a living word made alive by the Holy Spirit to impart life to us… not just information.

                Jesus said: “Truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood HAS eternal life; and I will raise him up on the last day. It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” John 6:53, 54, 63.

                This is the dividing line between true and false Christianity, for many of His disciples left Him after He said those words and people are still leaving Him today, because their definition of grace falls short of true salvation. I would invite you to study carefully the entire chapter of John, chapter 6. It all ties together, even the story of the storm at sea; for the disciples were struggling against the storm until Jesus got into the boat. Likewise we struggle against the storms of life until we take Jesus into ourselves and then we begin to live by His strength and not our own.

                Is it any wonder then that Jesus’ conclusion to this story is that we must eat His flesh and drink of His blood?

                We need to start living by true grace, for it is the power of God unto salvation. Romans 1:16, 17