Orange Moon Cafe "Why Grace?" Part 6 - The Promised Life

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…

 

  "Why Grace?" 

 

Part 6 - The Promised Life

 

    From the moment we trust in the grace and truth of the Lord Jesus Christ for our salvation, our spiritual enemies seek to move us away from the freely given acceptance, favor, and presence of God.

 

   "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel, which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ" (Galatians 1:6-7).

 

    Deceivers tempted the Galatian believers to exchange God's grace in Christ for human effort and ritual.  Thereby they could not steal the Galatians' Christ-secured salvation.  They could, however, gravely damage a living walk with God motivated, guided, and led by the Holy Spirit that alone leads to the believer's ability to "serve God acceptably" (Hebrews 12:28).  The New Testament epistles chronicle many such attempts by enemies identified as more devilish than human.  "Who hath bewitched you?... Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" (Galatians 3:1; 3; emphasis added).

 

   Through the centuries and unto this hour, Satan continues his war against the grace of God as the Christian's only hope for living a life pleasing to our Heavenly Father.  We "fight the good fight of faith" because faith alone provides our Spirit-empowered means whereby "we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand" (I Timothy 6:12; Romans 5:2).  The same Christ who saves us from eternal condemnation saves us unto an experience of consistent and growing godliness.  Indeed, obedience problems in believers always originate and proceed from problems with grace.  Always.  If we are not trusting and obeying God in a matter, we are failing to realize and access the freely given enabling whereby we overcome devilish and fleshly temptation.  "Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace" (Romans 6:14).  Moreover, if we are having problems with grace, we can know the challenge not only involves fleshly weakness, but also devilish deception.  "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places" (Ephesians 6:12).

 

   Believers are "hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3).  Thus, the devil cannot do a thing to remove us from our relationship and standing with our Heavenly Father.  However, the devil is allowed to challenge our access of grace for the living of the Christian life.  Thirty one pagan kings awaited Israel in the Promised Land, giving opportunity for God's chosen earthly nation to discover His faithfulness and enabling.  A far greater number of spiritual entities await us in our Promised Life lived by the grace of Christ as accessed through faith in Him.  Why grace? Because abundant and freely given grace dwells within us through the Holy Spirit in this present hour whereby, like Israel of old, the challenges we face become opportunities to place our feet on the necks of defeated kings (Joshua 10:24).  

 

    Our enemies know these truths better than we do.  They seek, therefore, to move us away from grace in order to stunt our growth in faith and faithfulness.  We must therefore get our spiritual dander up about the matter!  Somebody seeks to hinder our experience of the grace of God!  Let us then arise to fight the good fight of faith, determining to trust our blessed Lord Jesus for the next step of grace-enabled obedience no less than we trusted Him for forgiveness and redemption.  This is the only hope we have for a life of pleasing and acceptable service to God.  It is the only hope we need!  Let us then have grace, the grace that leads to acceptable service, reverence, and godly fear.  Thereby we will more consistently and increasingly live in a manner that reflects the promised life whereby through Christ we place our feet on the necks of vanquished foes who sought to thwart our access of grace, but who failed because we looked to the grace of "the Captain of the Lord's host... the Captain of our salvation" (Joshua 5:15; Hebrews 2:10).

 

"They which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ."

(Romans 5:17)

 

Weekly Memory Verse

    "It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves."

(Psalm 100:3)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5978