What Are You Doing with God’s Grace?

Grace is an amazing word to know for living today. Looking into my Nave’s Topical Bible, I found many verses that use the word, but I would like to share a parable that illustrates its meaning. The word has evolved in today’s language to mean forgiveness, blessing, or just to give someone a break. We use the word in our Church name, “Grace Harvest Church” and before this we were called, “Grace Chapel”. So we have always liked the name, mainly because we were in such need of it. When I looked up the verses from my Topical Bible in the Amplified Version, the word was translated as, “state of favor”. So to be in God’s grace or to have grace is to be in a state of favor with God.  This is where I want to be. We men spend a lot of time trying to gain the favor of our Fathers, but in the end we realize that favor from our Heavenly Father is the only favor we need.

Now I would like to share a little story that the lord Jesus used to illustrate forgiveness to Peter and the Disciples. But it also illustrates Grace in a way that amazes me. In Matthew 18:23-35 we read,
 “23 Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. 26 The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, 'Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.' 27 Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt. 28 But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, and ‘Pay me what you owe!' 29 So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.' 30 And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. 31 So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. 32 Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. 33 Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?' 34 And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. 35 So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses."

Now the first thing I wish to point out is that the servant owed the money to the King. It was not taxes, it was money loaned to him from the King. The servant at one time had received some money from the king with an agreement to pay it back. What did this servant do with this money? The same thing that we may do with the gifts and talents Christ gives us I afraid. Anyway, back to the servant and king. The servant owed the money. The amount could be figured out to today’s value but let’s just say it was an amount that neither the servant nor his family could pay it off in their lifetime (interest on sin is high priced, I guess). The King’s answer is to sell him and his family as slaves to payback the debt. This may shock some but that was what happens in those days. If you could not pay your debts, you and your family where sold as slaves to pay it off. But it was just until you paid it off or until the year of Jubilee when all slaves where set free and all land was returned to the family that had it. So the servant had a way out, but he was going to have to work for it. We find ourselves in this condition, a slave to debt. How many of us work to pay for that new car? Or it seems we work just to pay for those kids we left behind just because we wanted to be free. When they servant saw the reality of his folly and fell to the ground and begged the king to give him time. The servant probably already had a scheme worked out to try and pay the debt, enough to appease the king. But the king surprised him with compassion, mercy and yes, grace. He forgave the servant debt. He placed the servant in a state of favor. Boy how the other servants must have looked on in awe at this servant that the King showed such favor to.
            The servant left the king feeling pretty good and went straight to another servant who owed him a little bit of money which was nowhere near the amount he had owed the king. He grabbed him and tried to get the money out of him. His answer was to sell the man as a slave to cover the debt. Sounds familiar? The king heard of this and brought the servant back and gave him a real talking to. He had lost the favor of the king. Now if only the servant had received the grace of the king and let it change his heart to become a compassionate servant just as the King was compassionate, things would have been different. He stomped on the grace given him by the king. When the king forgave him his debt, someone was going to have to pay the debt, it was owed. Who paid? The King did. The servant’s grace was very expensive but he had made it cheap. This brings up a phrase coined by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Cheap Grace”.

This brings us to the Grace or favor that the Lord has bestowed on us. It is free, but it is not cheap. Christ paid a heavy price for the Grace we have. Can you look up at the cross and see the price He paid. So many people come to Him and the Church to get what they need and not appreciate the price He paid. What does this do to Grace? It’s like standing at the cross and stepping on His spilt blood and pushing it into the mud. It’s like standing there and spitting on that blood. I did not share this when I preached this in Church, but it’s like so many are pissing at the foot of the cross and taking His clothes. How are we doing this you may ask? We do it by living our lives without giving Him all of ourselves. How grievous is this sin of cheapening the Grace of God, of stepping out of His free favor to live our lives outside his grace. When I get up in the morning and I can feel His drawing me to commune with Him in prayer and the word, but instead I choose to settle down to a movie and wash the grace He has given me. Let us look up to the Cross and accept this Grace He purchased for us, the favor of a King. As the song goes, “We owed a debt we could not pay, He paid a debt He did not owe, and Christ Jesus paid a debt, a debt we could not pay.” When the loving Lord has given us so much, we indeed deserve Hell if we reject His Grace.

Jesus' Hot Topic

A couple of weeks ago as I was preparing to share at our Church service, I was moved to focus more on the guys who attend that are in the OIC program. Since I can only attend every-other weekend due to work, I saw that these guys come and go quickly. Some I may only get one chance to share with. So I decided from now on to be sure I share as if it was the last message I was going to get to do.
I conduct the weekly Communion part of the service. We do it every Sunday in order to try helping the Church grow together. So during this portion I am allowed to share some with the group.
Anyway, I was wondering what to share. Something that if I was only allowed one more time. I decided the least spoken message of today was on Hell. And if I was really concerned about these guys I would make sure they knew the truth on the matter.
I had done a previous post on Hell intitled:"The Hell You Say."
Preachers today seem to do more preaching on self-help and subjects for the seekers. No messages that might upset or offend the potential Church going and hopefully tither. This is just a lose observation. I am sure there are a lot of Churches that are preaching the truth. They are the ones that are shrinking in size.
Enough rambling, We used to say Hell was a hot topic but not anymore although Jesus spoke of it more than He spoke on Heaven. It was His Hot Topic. Now we hear of popular preachers saying that Hell is only the absence of the presence of God. Or that in the end all will be saved.
There are a lot of passages on this subject. I did not go through all the verses and related interpretations on the subject, Soul sleep, purgatory and such. I felt the end result was the best way to go. I am using the TEV, a very simple easy to read translation. Not good for real study, but an easy read for those not accustomed to the other better translations.
"Then the Devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of fire and sulpher, were the beast and the false prophet had already been thrown; and they will be tormented day and night, for ever and ever." Revelation 20:10
Then death and the world of the dead were thrown into the lake of fire. (This lake of fire is the second death.) Whoever did not have his name written in the book of the living was thrown into the lake of fire." Rev. 20:14-15
As you can see it plainly says that Hell is hot and forever.
Now the main argument I hear is," How could a loving God send people to Hell?" and to me the most stupid statement in the world, "I could not spend eternity with a God that sends people to Hell." (second stupid question, “Why can't the government do something about the gulf disaster?")
I pondered these questions at work and realized! The problem is that people today don't think they deserve hell. People do not think they have done anything that would warrant spending eternity suffering in Hell. When I was born again, I realized, I DESERVED HELL! And from there I received forgiveness and a new life in Christ.
Until people see how lost they are, they will never see the need for Christ.
I also pondered, what sin would warrant this penalty of eternal suffering. Surly there is no sin that was committed in a person's lifetime that would take an eternity to pay for in Hell. Then it came to me, there is one sin. The sin of not excepting Jesus' free gift of deliverance.
Picture this if you will. The creator of the universe comes down to live with man. Shows mankind Himself. Submits to torture and death to bridge the relationship between Himself and mankind. Offers new life for eternity for anyone who receives it. And there are those who hear, but WILL not believe. It's not that they can not believe. The Holy Spirit gives us the faith we need. We can not believe on our own. But these choose NOT to believe. They have turned down all that the loving creator has offered. They have chosen Hell. We Christians like to quote the verse:
"Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart." Psalms 37:4 KJV
This verse works both ways. We will get what we chose. A true Christians’ only desire is the Christ. The non-believers desire is to have nothing to do with Christ or not to have Christ's control over them. They will get what they desire, eternity without Christ. They problem lies in that in the end there are only two places to go, Heaven (City of God) or Hell (the bottomless pit, lake of fire etc...)
Picture this if you will, when Christians are resurrected they will be given eternal bodies. So will the non-believers. Eternal, can not be destroyed. They have chosen eternity without Christ so they have only one place to go. To the lake of fire.
if you have ever nearly drowned in water. Head goes under. No place to plant your feet. Swallowing water. Now picture: Head going under in fire. Burning but not consumed. Swallowing fire but not dying. Not place to plant your feet. That is Hell.
This is really gruesome and no wonder we do not like to speak of it. Be careful of preachers that do preach it with a smile on their faces. But if we really believe this and truly care for the lost we will tell the truth.
Search the scriptures for yourself.
Your eternity hangs on what you believe or not believe.

Being The New Testament Church Part 2: Baptisms

In continuation of my last post on “Being the New Testament Church” we are discussing Acts 2:41. After the new believers “believed in what Peter preached and then became baptized. The fact that the early New Testament (NT) believers were “baptized” can have many implications. According to which Christian discipline you are of the baptism mentioned could be “water baptism” or “the Baptism of the Holy Ghost”. Peter’s requirement for those asking “what they needed to do” mentions the “remission of sins” and “receiving the Holy Ghost”. This may be a little confusing so let’s take a look at the Biblical Baptism question.
In the NT we first see John the Baptist performing this service. I have see programs on the TV that suggest that John got the practice of baptism from an earlier Jewish sec like the Essenes. This is debatable. The first baptism we are introduced to is a baptism in water by submersion. This has been called all through the New Testament as John’s baptism or the baptism of repentance. In three of the gospels Jesus is pictured as coming to John and being baptized and in all three accounts the Heavens opened up, a voice spoke and the Holy Spirit came down. This is one of those moments when the total God was present. God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit all showed up for Jesus’ baptism. Now since this was a baptism of repentance why did Jesus need it unless He had sinned? In Matthew3:13 He answered this, “…it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” One Commentator said that He had to be baptized so that He could be identified with His people. This is true but in Galations 3:27 and Colossians 2:12, both show that baptism is a picture of us being buried with Christ and risen to new life with Him. We rise clean and we put on Christ. We forsake our nature and we take the nature and righteousness of Jesus. We no longer live but Christ lives in us (Galations 2:20). So there was a reason to for Him to submit to John’s baptism.
We see that as the Holy Spirit entered Him at this moment things began to change. Jesus was introducing a new baptism that would come into effect after He fulfilled His purpose. Acts 10:37 states that the Holy Spirit anointed Jesus at John’s baptism of Him. At this point some may say, “the Bible states there is One Lord, One Faith and One Baptism.” Some say that there are more than one according to Hebrews 6:2 where it states that “baptisms” plural, is one of the elementary doctrines of Christ. Which is right? As we look at Ephesians 4:5 in context we see that Paul is speaking of the Body of church believers, also called the Body of Christ. So this one Baptism of believers must be a baptism into the church, because there are other baptisms mentioned in the scripture. Jesus called His death on the cross as a baptism as recorded in Luke 12:50.
So, how do we know of which baptism Peter was speaking of I vs. 41? Let’s look at the Christian growth process as a whole. In Gen. 1:26 and 11;7. God reveals Himself as a plural Personage. By reading the revealed scriptures in the NT we see that God is in fact Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Now I do not agree with our brethren that say God was God the Father in the Old Testament times , God the Son in NT times and now is a God the Spirit at our present time. We have seen that all three were present at the baptism of Jesus the Man. Jesus said at least one time that he had to “go to the Father” and that He ascended to the right hand of the Father. And that He would send another comforter.
Back to Christian growth as concerning baptisms. We being created in the image of God, which is body, soul and spirit like He is Father, Son and Holy Ghost. At the fall of mankind the spirit part of man died. Giving future humanity a dead spirit nature. At our conversion, our being born again, we received a live spirit able to worship and commune again with God. In the Christian Growth Process we deal with the past, present and future. We have been saved, we are being saved and we will be saved. That is why the bible says that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb. 13:8). When reading scripture we can see by reading the text within context if it is speaking of our past, present or future condition. I need to say here that the fallowing is my opinion and not to be taken as doctrine. I am an uneducated factory worker just trying to help you make some sense of this subject. I am not the final authority on the subject.
With that said, let’s move on.
John’s baptism was a baptism for repentance. It dealt with our past condition. An outward act reflecting an inward work. It shows that we are buried with Christ and risen with Him in life. That we are no longer subject to eternal death. I remember when I was a child baptized after walking the aisle and saying “the prayer”, it had no effect on my life. When I was converted as a teenager, I knew it was not right and that I needed to be baptized again. Nobody told me I needed to, I just knew. It was after this that I started to change. I started to understand the Bible. Christian principles were open to me. Concern for the lost became genuine.
In Acts 19:3-4 we see another baptism. The Baptism of the Holy Ghost. This baptism is a baptism for the present condition of a believer. Just as John’s baptism was for the saving from the past, the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is for the saving of the present. Here I would like to say that the baptisms of and in themselves do nothing but (as said before) give outward show evidence of an inward work. John’s baptism was connected to the “saving of the Spirit”, the Baptism of the Holy Ghost is connected to the “saving of the soul”. Soul being the mind and emotions. It is a daily process with the Baptism as a starting point. Simply said, baptisms are just marks of a “new beginning” in a Christian’s growth in life with God. There is much debate as to the evidence of this baptism and when does a person receive it. Many believe that it comes when we are born again and some say it is a “second blessing” that comes separate. Whether separate or together, whether with out without evidence. No matter which way you swing, just get it. I know some who claim it and some who don’t that love the Lord and the same for ones that live worldly. One thing for sure, if you can argue about it, hold back fellowship or hate your brother over it, you do not have it.
John had had spoken of Jesus coming to baptize us with the Holy Spirit and Fire. What is this Fire Baptism? (Mat. 3:11 and Luke 3:16) Many have tried to answer this and here is my try. Fire in the Bible has mostly been a symbol of purging. In Luke 3:16 were John says that Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit and Fire, the next verse speaks of wheat being purged from the chaff. The useless part of the wheat. In a Christian’s life there will come times of testing. Times of “New Beginnings” that serve to purge us of useless things in our lives that hinder our spiritual growth. These are baptisms of fire. I may add that if a person has not had the Baptism of Repentance and the Baptism of the Holy Ghost, things might not turn out that good. I once had a job that I had been employed at for fourteen and a half years. At the time I was consumed with preaching in group homes, jails and prisons. Ministry in the streets and concert outreaches. And quit full of myself. Then I found myself jobless. Having to start all over again. At this time I started doing “Internet Evangelism”. I found out quite quick that I did not know as much as I thought. Looking back at my job loss, I saw mistakes that I had made which lead up to my loss. I was completely humbled. This was a baptism of fire. I look back now, at this time ten years ago, and see my spiritual growth much higher and my usefulness to the kingdom increased. I’ve learned to “humble myself” instead of letting the Lord do it for me.
This is the Baptism of Fire which will save us. (again, outward marks of an inward work) It is the daily dying of our flesh. Our ego. Anything that hinders our relationship to the Lord with the final climax as our bodily death. As Jesus pointed to His death as a baptism, so we will all enter into a baptism that will save our body. A baptism for the future. A new beginning with the Father.
In Acts 2:41 the baptism Peter spoke of is one or all of the baptisms. Some say that we are to baptize in Jesus’ name only because nowhere in the book of Acts does it show anyone doing it. Jesus gives us the commission to “Go and teach all nations and baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit”, in Mat. 28:19. Could Jesus be telling us to go and baptize for the saving of all the person? Body, Soul and Spirit? The Baptism of John or Repentance for the saving of the Spirit and for being added to the Church. The Baptism of the Holy Ghost for the saving of the Soul, in the name of Jesus. The Holy Spirit teaching us of Jesus and renewing our mind. He Baptism of Fire for the salvation of our body. The Holy Spirit leading us through the fire baptisms of life. All the way to our bodily death and final union with God.
Again, this is just an idea and an attempt to put baptisms in perspective. I’m not pushing my formula or anything else. The point is, baptism is a new beginning. The new believers in Acts 2:41 had to start all over again before they could be added to the Church. Then they could understand the Apostle’s teaching with revelation. Fellowship in true Christ-Like love, take part in the Body of Christ and pray effectively. They became New Testament Christians.

Further Reading on baptisms:
Mat. 3:6; 21:25
Mark 1:4; 16:16
Luke 3:12, 21; 7:29
John 1:26; 3:5, 23
Acts 2:38; 8:12, 38; 9:18; 10:48; 13:2416:15, 33; 18:8; 22:16
Romans 6:3; 1 Cor. 12:13; 1 Peter 3:21