Peace in Rest

I've had this in my Blogger 'drafts' since August 1, and I thought I'd just go ahead and post it.  I don't remember if I'd planned to write more (probably so), but I like it as it is.
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I had a fun little exchange with a Facebook friend this afternoon. As her status, she had written something about having "nothing I have to do today... nowhere I have to be..."

I replied, "Slacker. ;)"

And I loved her reply:

"And lovin' it..."

So I replied back, "Ah, finally, someone who's at peace in rest. :) Hard to find these days!"

To which she said, "That's Christ in me, the hope of glory."

To find someone who is at peace in rest - that truly is hard to find these days. In this busy world, it seems that people always have to be doing something, even if they have nothing they have to do! Or they have to go somewhere even if they have nowhere they have to go! People find it hard to rest. They find no peace in rest. Perhaps rest means "guilt" for them. Guilt for not doing something at the moment. Maybe if they stop, and rest, their mind will be occupied with thoughts of what they "should" have done but didn't do, or "shouldn't" have done but did. I suppose that's one reason of many why people don't rest.

I think that's perhaps one reason why some people (probably many people) find it hard to rest in Christ. To "rest" IS in their Christian vocabulary, but not in their Christian practice.  Imagine that... "doing" resting.  :)

Rooted and Grounded

Some of my favorite reminders of being rooted and established in God's love and grace.

Heb 13:9 (NKJV)
Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods [read: laws] which have not profited those who have been occupied with them.

2 Peter 3:18 (KJV)
But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

Col 2:6-7 (NKJV)
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

Col 2:7 (NLT)
Let your roots grow down into him and draw up nourishment from him, so you will grow in faith, strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught. Let your lives overflow with thanksgiving for all he has done.

Ps 92:12-15 (NKJV)
12 The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree,
He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
13 Those who are planted in the house of the LORD
Shall flourish in the courts of our God
14 They shall still bear fruit in old age;
They shall be fresh and flourishing,
15 To declare that the LORD is upright;
He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.

If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?

Love keeps no record of wrongs.
(1 Cor 13:5)

If you, God, kept records on wrongdoings,
who would stand a chance?
As it turns out, forgiveness is your habit,
and that's why you're worshiped.
(Ps 130:3-4, The Message)

As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
(Ps 103:12)

But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
(Isa 53:5-6)

"I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake;
And I will not remember your sins.
(Isa 43:25)

No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."
(Jer 31:34)

ONLY BY GRACE
Only by grace can we enter
Only by grace can we stand
Not by our human endeavor
But by the blood of the Lamb

Lord, if You marked our transgressions
Who would stand
Thanks to Your grace we are cleansed
By the blood of the Lamb

If I was really living by grace...

As you've been learning of the wonder of God's unconditional love, and growing in His grace, have you ever wondered or thought to yourself, "If God's grace really is so powerful, and I claim to believe in it and to be walking in it, then why do I still do the things I do?"

"If Christ's life is really my life, and I'm really abiding in Him and Him in me, then why do I fall so short of living a godly life?  Why do I keep sinning?  Why haven't I overcome certain things, and why don't I love others the way that I really want to - with the very love of God?"

You know what I'm saying?  Ever felt like that?  You know grace and agape-love is powerful and preeminent, so why, if you are truly filled with it and walking in it, doesn't it always show?

Well, first off, know this.  No matter what you look like on the outside or feel like on the inside:

• You are not condemned.
• You are no less of a son of God.
• God still loves you and likes you with a passion beyond your comprehension.
• You have been perfected forever.
• You are complete in Him.
• You are accepted in the Beloved.
• You are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
  
• When you are faithless, He remains faithful.
• The love of God does abide in you.
• You are in the light.

All of this is true, not because of your abilities to keep them true, but because of God's grace.  They are realities that are beyond the scope of our five senses.  You may or may not see or feel or taste or smell or hear the outward expression of these things, but nonetheless they are realities that are fully true and that cannot be denied because God Himself has made these things to be true by His own grace, when you were raised together with Christ.  Your behavior and your senses and inside feelings are not always representative of these permanent truths, but that doesn't make the truth any less true.

You truly want these things that are true of you inwardly to be expressed outwardly.  It's really who you are, so it's only natural that you want to walk in them more fully.  But who's to say that the outward working of these things should happen in one day, one week, one month, one year, five years, a decade... or a lifetime?  What I mean is, if you or anyone else puts some sort of a time line or time limit on these changes in your life, it's all subjective and superficial.  It's man-generated.  It's fleshly.

Which leads me to say that all of this must be (and is) God's very own work.  While we fret and worry about how our lives are turning out, He remains calm and worry-free.  He knows that He is at work in us, to will and to do according to His good pleasure.  He knows that we are not the product of our own workmanship, but of His.  He knows that He began a good work in us and He doesn't worry about whether or not He will be faithful to complete that good work!

From our own experiences and from the lives of countless biblical characters, we can see that growing in grace and love is not always neat and tidy.  It can be quite messy.  It's a perfect work that is being done by God from the inside out, but it's not always going to appear that way.  You know you're not the person you were as you look back on your life.  You've seen God's grace at work in your life.  You've experienced transformation in one way or another, and you know it's all been God's work.  Continue to trust Him, that, even though there are some really messy things in your life right now, He's faithfully at work in you, working things out in His own ways, in His own timing.  Rest in that.

The offense of the gospel is that it is good news!

The gospel is meant to be an offense to religious people... not to sinners!  The gospel really is good news for sinners.  "God demonstrates His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."  "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."

There previously was an old covenant through which sinners were condemned.  The law stood to make the whole world guilty before God.  It was the ministry of death and the ministry of condemnation (2 Cor 3:7-11).  It was not good news.  It was bad news.  It was the ministry the Apostle Paul had formerly preached vehemently.  The ministry of the good news had been offensive to Paul.  It had been enough of an offense to him that he went around persecuting and killing those of the Good News way.

But then Paul came to understand that the good news really was good news, and that Christ had come to deliver us from the law and from condemnation.  Paul then stopped preaching the bad news and he stopped persecuting those who believed the good news, and he himself became a passionate preacher of the good news.  Those in Judea said of Paul, "He who formerly persecuted us now preaches the faith which he once tried to destroy."

So Paul had formerly been a deeply religious legalist, rooted and grounded in the bad-news ways of the Old Covenant.  In his letter to the Philippians, Paul told them all about this.  He talked about his Jewish heritage, and how he had even considered himself blameless according to the law!  That was his life.  That's the "news" that he had lived by.  In his blindness, he didn't see that it was bad news.  But then when he began to "see," he found that he had to chuck all of that aside and count it all as dung (his own words) so that He could be established in the good news of grace and peace, and of forgiveness of sins, and of the Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world.

And that is what offended people!  Paul, the former persecutor, began to be among the persecuted, all because he stopped trusting in the law and the ways of the Old Covenant and he began trusting solely in the finished work of Christ and the gift of righteousness by grace through faith.  He began telling "sinners" that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting people's sins against them (2 Cor 5:19).  That message had previously infuriated him, and now he was in the business of laboring hard (by the grace of God) to spread that very message.

It's a "good news" message in every way.  The good news message is an offense to those who are of the law - and even to those who say they believe in Christ and yet want to add works, rules and laws to faith.  But to anyone and everyone else - to sinners of every kind - the good news is meant to be a beautiful and joyous sight and experience!

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GIG 218 - Accepted in the Beloved

God has made us accepted in the Beloved. God Himself has done this! It's not through anything we've done. It's not through our striving to reach out to God, but it's about recognizing that in Christ He has reached out to all of mankind and pursued us with great passion!

Special treat coming up for Growing in Grace listeners! To round out the month of December, Steve McVey of Grace Walk Ministries will be joining Mike and Joel as a guest on the next three programs!

gigcast.graceroots.org

Energized By Grace - Steve McVey

I wanted to link to this post from Steve McVey for a couple of reasons.  First, on the ever so slight chance that there's someone who reads my blog who doesn't know who Steve is, it's a great introduction to him!  :)  Secondly, this post gives kind of a foundational "response" to those who either say that grace leads to passivity and irresponsibility or to those who really do see grace as nothing more than an excuse to be lazy. I think this blog post of Steve's really shows the power and depth of grace - how it doesn't merely forgive us and get us out from under the law, and how it doesn't merely 'help' us in limited ways or only in certain areas of our walk, but how it is the very essence and source of the entire Christian life.  And so I wanted to link to it here for anyone who wants to read it and as a reference for myself that I can share with others when those issues arise.

Steve McVey - Energized By Grace

Exchanged Life prayer - thanks WC

From Meeting of One

Exchanged Life Prayer into His Kingdom

Dearest Lord Jesus,

I believe in You.

Thank You for giving your life for me.

Thank You for giving your life to me.

Thank you for taking my sin, guilt and shame on the cross.

I need You.

I need your grace to forgive me, and I need your life to live through me.

I gladly, but humbly, exchange my life for yours. . I thank You that my old sinful nature was crucified with Jesus.

I believe that I no longer live but Jesus now lives in me and through me as me.

I thank You that my spirit is now alive to God.

Please teach me that I cannot live FOR You, but I need to let You live your life through me.

Thank You that I am hidden in You and apart from You I can do nothing.

Thank You Jesus, my Christ, Son of the Living God.