An Abundance of Grace

Just like the serpent did in the garden of Eden, Satan always wants to pollute your perception of Who God is and His promises. He wants you to focus on your sin rather than repent and TRUST for the instant you do you realize that God never left, that you never ‘surprise’ Him, that His love and grace are infinitely more powerful than your failures, that Christ’s blood is and always will be the fina...

So, what we are meant to understand is that the God-Son, as the Almighty’s Expression, His Agent, didn’t simply create life but rather He is life . Thus, the entire cosmos was vested in the outcome of His sacrifice.

This is why the trifecta is so important. God could have done anything to rectify what was being spoiled. He could have created literally anything, and yet He chose to create a beautiful world with a magnificent garden and a situation that would teach all His creation the one fundamental truth.

Do you want to live as Jesus, like His disciples (post Calvary)? Meet each moment, good or bad, with trust in Father God. And don’t worry about it, don’t try to make yourself trust. Just choose it and rest in Him.

In our day, you might say ‘he just couldn’t catch a break’. He started off as kind of a ‘grumbler’, not at all happy about what God had told him to do. Ironically, he came from a small town just a few miles from modern day Nazareth which of course was where Jesus grew up.

Why is the human heart and mind ‘coping’ with Jesus by trying to define Him in these myriad ways? Simply put, to define Him is to put Him in a ‘box’, to ‘contain’ Him. When something we perceive about Him or those we associate with Him bums us out, we can simply adjust our definition and thus His ‘container’. That’s how we remain ‘superior’.

I must have read this scripture a thousand times, literally, and then a couple of days ago, wham. It struck me as shocking that the risen Lord, the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, Lord of all, having conquered death and hell and condemned the devil to destruction, having completed His divine mission – He calls the very ones who deserted Him in the garden, He calls them “My brothers”.

Comparatively, it’s easy to recognize Satan’s work outwardly but not so obvious when his work is inward and most of the time it is. His thought-arrows are deception, hatred, pride and lust, etc. As he influences you with his ‘propaganda’, you become his tool.

And this is where the “fullness” comes in, literally. When He comes in, He brings His “fullness” – infinite love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and so forth. His presence is His fullness . Filled with His fullness means filled with God’s presence and thus all that He is. It’s a spiritual union : For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. "For this...

For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Eph 2:10)

This glorious gift of grace means that with His Spirit in you, you are no longer “of the earth” like the first Adam. Rather, you are from that point forward “of heaven” like the “last Adam”. In fact, you are then a member of the family of God – your name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

He’s Lord of the Sabbath because back in Genesis He created the the seventh day of rest, the Sabbath, (See Gen 2:2,3) and more than that, He is the Sabbath. More accurately, He is our Sabbath . You see, sabbath is all about rest and peace . Because of this, it is also about trust for you cannot truly have rest or peace unless you have trust, trust in the Almighty. Jesus embodies this rest, peace a...

These people who could not believe despite the obvious, empowered by the presence of God’s Spirit in them were transformed inwardly. They then had the power to embrace ‘the basics’ and the power to trust the next lesson – perfection.

When all others forsake and or forget you, God never will. His love for you is perfect and eternal. And you may think, ‘God doesn’t understand my hurt’, but actually He does. You see the pain of forgottenness is synonymous with the pain of forsakenness. And on the cross, God the Son cried out to God the Father: And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sab...

Jesus spoke of “great faith” and “little faith” and a couple times of “no faith”. But in Luke chapter seventeen, after exhorting His disciples about forgiveness: “Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day , and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him ....

Did you notice? It looks like all these six incidents involved one or more of the three ‘inner circle’ disciples who witnessed Christ’s transfiguration. What amazing patience from Jesus as He faced the coming sacrifice!

Like John the Baptist, we all tend to look for the wrong things from God. When God doesn’t do what we expect or how we expect or when we expect, we can be ‘scandalized’ or ‘tripped up’ or doubtful. We set our eyes upon men, even ‘spiritual’ men, even men in ministry and when they fail our expectation (and they always will), we can be like John.

Actually, you could say disobedience on Adam’s part led to sin and sin led to fear. And ever since, it has been hard-wired into the human race. Now, the Bible clearly instructs us to fear the Lord (more than 30 times) but let me clarify something. When the scriptures talk about the fear of the Lord, they are referring to reverence – to revere Him. You see, in both Hebrew and Greek, the languages o...

You see, Jacob had always been all about escaping trouble, escaping fear and you can bet that as a last resort, that plan was always on his mind. But with a broken hip? That won’t happen.

Now, “wedding” is a New Testament word and “marriage” is only used twice in the Old Testament which I find interesting. Of course, weddings and the concept of marriage are as old as the story of mankind. And notably, weddings are the joyous celebration of marriage and thus it’s natural that Christ’s first miracle as recorded in John chapter two was in support of that joy.

But in chapter twenty, as Abraham was looking off in that direction, the whole valley became a billowing furnace, like a nuclear bomb had dropped. It’s likely that Abraham’s heart just sank. You see, they had no cell-phones then. Abraham saw this inferno in the valley and surely thought his beloved Lot was toast, literally. He had no way to know that God had saved him by taking him out of there.

Now that was a sight to behold! The scriptures tell that no man has seen God at any time but here the LORD (Yahweh) caused all His goodness to pass before Moses.

The first teaching regards doing righteousness which includes kind deeds, giving, and service or any personal sacrifice. Religion emphasizes doing these things publicly and many systems are in place to acknowledge the ‘righteous doers’ and to glorify them.

This parable from Jesus speaks to the character of the Almighty and, importantly, about our perception of His character. Unfortunately, many preachers and commentators ignore that and zero-in on the issue of their productivity or lack thereof.

When you look into a mirror, you’re looking at yourself – the implication is that with Christ in you as a believer, you are also seeing Jesus but dimly because of the flesh. Therefore you ‘know’ or recognize Him in part. But the time is coming when you will perfectly know Him just as He knows you. You’ll know Him this way because you were made to be this way – in His image.