The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"Grace Through Faith"
"In the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus…The just shall live by faith" (Ephesians 2:7; Romans 1:17).
Why is faith so elemental to our existence that we must live by it?
The answer lies in the truth of how elemental grace is to God's existence. Our Lord made us to serve as the very Life of our lives, a reality wherein our role involves the ongoing reception of such a gift. We begin our relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ by receiving the grace of salvation. We faithfully walk in the relationship by receiving the grace of life, Christ's life, motivating, leading, and enabling us as we trust Him.
"By grace are ye saved through faith" (Ephesians 2:8).
"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him" (Colossians 2:6).
An infinite God, existing as the only source and supply of that which He creates, cannot make other conscious beings to be anything other than dependent on Him. "Thou art God alone" (Psalm 86:10). Thus, the human race originally made in His image must live by the faith that acknowledges His provision and our need. The writer of Hebrews definitively declared the truth that leads us to rightly relate to God: "Let us have grace, that we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear" (Hebrews 12:28). Only by faith do we receive such grace, thus constituting trust in God as the very heart of how we are to live as human beings. "In Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 12:28).
In Eden, Adam and Eve succumbed to Satan's temptation to "be as gods" (the deception originated by the devil, and in which he himself exists - Genesis 3:5; Isaiah 14:14). Rather than grace received by faith, our forefathers sought to live by their own devices. This illusion embraced resulted in delusion established as the default position of the human race. Left to ourselves, we seek to live as if by ourselves. This includes every unbeliever, "alienated from the life of God" (Ephesians 4:18). It can include believers in the Lord Jesus if we succumb to the temptation forget the ever present grace of God, and our ever present need. We overcome such devilish and fleshly enticement by affirming our confidence in the Christ who dwells within our spirits, and our "no confidence" in the flesh.
"This is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask any thing according to His will, He heareth us" (I John 5:14).
"We are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh" (Philippians 3:3).
Grace through faith began our relationship with God, based on who He is, and who we are. It continues our fellowship and walk with Him, again, based on who He is, and who we are. Anything less or else cannot be defined as life. We are either living by faith and waiting to be glorified, or we are walking in unbelief and waiting to die. The Bible does not refer to "believers" as believers merely in title. Believing is rather our very nature, through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. "I delight in the law of God after the inward man" confessed Paul, referring to "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" (Romans 7:22; 8:2). This law operates solely by grace provided and faith exercised. God perfectly fulfills His role. May we "grow in grace" and more consistently and faithfully fulfill ours (II Peter 3:18).
"Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Spirit."
(Romans 15:13)
"And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work."
(II Corinthians 9:8)
Weekly Memory Verse
We are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.
(Philippians 3:3)
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