EXPERIENCING THE FREEDOM OF GRACE
Do you want to really experience God in your life like you see of Jesus? Do you know that it possible to enjoy more of God’s blessings and goodness without placing more demands on yourself? Many have labored and struggled to please God and failed, some are discouraged and some have given up.
The main problem is that we are trying to please Him with our performance and activities. God wants us to come to a place where we trust more in His grace than we do in self-effort. Ask yourself if you really trust the way of grace, or do you always fall back on self-effort? We must trust in the grace of God all the way, all time the time.
The Bible tells us that this Jewish law never gave life to anybody, or made anybody righteous
Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
Romans 3:20
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.
Galatians 2:16
Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law.
Galatians 3:21
The Old Covenant was Jewish law that God gave to Israel. It did not begin in the book of Genesis but the at the foot of Mount Sinai. The Law of Moses was not given to Gentiles and it did not consist of only Ten Commandments, but 613 laws. The Ten Commandments comprises just 1.6% of the Law. It was really a lot to keep everyday to present a man perfect. But God also gave them a system offerings and sacrifices because He knew they could not keep them. So the offerings and sacrifices represented redemption in shadow form.
The scriptures say the Law was intended only as a shadow, or picture of the Christ to come.
So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths,17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.
Colossians 2:16, 17;
For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect.
Hebrews 10:1
When we build our lives on the shadows we will never get satisfied and be at peace with ourselves. The voice of condemnation keeps speaking to us and pointing us to our failures and inadequacies. The law became the ministry of death. The Law doesn’t encourage or praise us. It makes us aware of our problems and issues and not the Saviour. If you break one aspect of it, you break the whole thing.
For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.
James 2:10
The law brought us to a conclusion that within ourselves we have no adequate response to heaven’s perfect standard; the Law’s strict demands make it quite clear that we fall short (Galatians 3:21, 22). You must realize that you cannot fulfill a divine mandate with human resources. That is Israel continued to break the Law time and time again because it was not designed to bring success (Exodus 24:7). We cannot achieve righteousness through self-effort (Romans 5:20, 21).
Under the new covenant, God puts His faithfulness on display (Hebrews 6:13-18). Abraham did not get blessed because he was faithful; He got blessed because He trusted God’s faithfulness. This new covenant is based on the faithfulness of God the father and Jesus the man. This covenant is surely failure-proof.
C. There are four areas where God committed in the new covenant:
1. God swore by Himself to make sure that we would always have a perfect Priest who would be a guarantor of a better covenant (Hebrews 7:21, 22).
2. God promised to never leave or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).
3. God promised to be faithful to Himself.
4. God became a guarantor of a better covenant.
D. God will never again make a covenant like the old covenant. The new covenant is completely based on His faithfulness
6 But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.
7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.8 Because finding fault with them, He says: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 9 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord.10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
Hebrews 8:6-10
The new covenant is heaven’s solution to man’s faithlessness. Islam is an attempt by man to correct Judaism. Christianity is God’s answer to sin and death. God rigged the system by downloading His thoughts and guidelines into our hearts when we accept Christ.
What is our response in this new covenant? Do we have to serve God because He has redeemed us? Do stop living our lives in order to repay? No, a thousand times No! We must understand that we cannot repay Him and He has not demanded that we repay Him. We cannot possibly pay back His worth and redemption. There are only two ways to respond to the new covenant: belief and thanksgiving. God wants us to enter into His rest and by accepting His love daily and reflecting praise in response of what redemption means in our hearts.
I know it seems that God doesn’t require much from you. His full demands have been met by one man Jesus and that is why the scriptures says that “You are accepted in the beloved”. God’s love for you can never be taken from you, no matter what.
HE SHALL RETURN IN LIKE MANNER: A LOOK AT ACTS 1:11
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GRACE: THE FINAL WORD
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