Many lack revelation and insight on the grace of God. We have to remember that it’s by grace that we have been saved through Faith! Grace showed up at our door when we least deserved it! When we were at our lowest point in life, Jesus showed up. Salvation came to our door. The Holy Spirit filled us. We became a well of eternal life and Godliness. We became the Temple of God. We became Sons and Daughters of God. We became Kings and Priests before God. We were filled with the same Glory that Jesus had. In the midst of our sin, at rock bottom, we became seated in Heavenly Places. Crucified with Christ, filled with the same power that raised Christ from the dead. When we least deserved it, the moment we believed. All of this entered our lives and bodies because of Grace! Undeserved Favor…See, God showed me 4 different types of Grace, and there may be many others. Grace is not just one thing. It has many different types and facets.
“Use hospitality one to another without grudging. As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God” (1 Peter 4:9-10). That word manifold means many different types; in this case, on the subject of Grace. If you continue to read after verse 10, you can see it’s talking about a Grace; that is, an ability to do something that God ordains or leads you to do. Here’s Verse 11: “If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth.” See, the ability which “God gives”. One of the types of Grace that comes from God is the power or the ability to carry out what God calls us to do. It is the performance of God that quickens our mortal body to be able to do the will of the Father. That’s why Jesus said apart from me, you can do nothing, and Paul said I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And when Jesus spoke to the rich young ruler and said, “Sell all that you have, give to the poor, and follow me. It’s harder for a rich man to get into the Kingdom than a camel through the eye of a needle,” the disciples asked, “Who then can be saved?” And Jesus said, “With man this is impossible, but with God it is possible” (Matthew 19:16-26). See, that is a form of divine grace to be able to do what God is asking, that makes it possible in a man’s life to be able to do what only God can empower you to do. This grace we need every day for everything we do. It is access to His divine nature to be like Him, walk like Him, the ability of God to do and to obey what Jesus requires of us. That’s why the Bible says go boldly to the Throne of Grace in time of need, when we need strength like Jesus needed in the garden. Just as God said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient in your weakness.”
The other type of Grace is a form of mercy; when we sin, we drink His blood and eat His flesh. We have a propitiation for our sins, which is the body of Jesus. This form of grace is an everlasting grace that allows us to step into the mercy of God at will, as we repent to be washed and cleansed, but this grace also covers and pays our debt of sin. And washes it away, not needing our works to let us receive it or drink it again or earn it back, but an allowance that we have with a genuine heart to be able to step back into the mercy of God when we step out of Christ or into sin. This is an everlasting mercy that if any man sin, there is a mediator between God and man. And this is not a grace that is to be abused or used as a license to sin, but for those who aim for deliverance and freedom, who are looking to depart or separate from it, not for those who want to continue to do their sin and use that grace as a cover-up to continue to do it. It covers and pays for those who strive after righteousness, not those who partner with lasciviousness (Jude 1:4).
Another type of Grace is the patience of God. There’s a time when God winks, Acts 17:30. A time of ignorance, where there may be places in us that the fire of God has not dealt with yet. Or things in your life that are not being dealt with or touched at the moment. There’s a grace when our character is still being worked on and we’re still being changed that does not let those things get in the way of what God has for you at the moment. See, the devil wants you to focus on your flesh, or your failures, but this grace allows you to continue to see yourself in the light of Jesus and put down the mirror of self-reflection for the moment and be able stand bold in who you are in Him and what you have in Him despite your imperfection and flaws that you as yet are still working out with Him. And Galatians 2:21 indicates that we can frustrate the grace of God. There’s a time when our ignorance is covered, and we’re still able to operate in the Kingdom with boldness. Though when it’s time for accountability and for our issues to be made known to us, the Bible says if a man knows to do right but doesn’t, it is accounted for him as sin (James 4:17). See, we’re in a process of transformation, and the more God reveals Himself and the revelation of who we are, we are being changed. And at the same time, the fire is bringing to the surface everything not of God in us, so that we can repent and divorce it. You can think of times where God moved through you so mightily, but then 2 weeks later, the fire of God comes again to reveal something in you that has been in you all this time, even when you were moving mightily in the power of God. Yet now that grace is lifted, the wink is gone, the revealer but deliverer is here to deliver us and refine us to take us to another level of Glory and beauty, but we have to have ashes to have beauty. Knowing this, we keep our eyes off ourselves and allow the fire of God to bring to light what He is refining in season.
And the last grace, which was spoken about in the beginning of this scroll, is the undeserved favor. A grace that reminds us that nothing we have in Him is because of our works, but because of His Grace. Nothing that God has for us in Christ should be something we think that we have to work for or earn, but rather something we have to believe for to see. See, it was by grace through our faith that we were saved, and now it’s by faith through grace that we can even lay hold and believe that what Jesus already paid for can be ours! Jesus already paid it, so what price are you paying? Are you paying the price to obtain what you have already been given according to the Word? Or are you paying the price to be sanctified and set apart to be able to handle these precious promises and Glory? See, if God just gave everyone their inheritance, it would destroy some of us. Just like the prodigal son outside of the timing that his father desired for him, it destroyed him, and he was left broke, busted, and disgusted. Yet at least he believed that he had access to this inheritance. Yet see in the meantime, while we are believing God, He is quickening the process so that we can be a pot that can handle the blessing of the Lord, so that when we are seeing the manifestation of everything that He has for us, it doesn’t make us crack like the prodigal son.
We are the clay; He is the potter. He is building us into a pot that cannot be cracked, that will not become prideful or conceited. He is dealing with our character as our steps are ordered by the Lord towards the promised land. The Children of Israel were headed towards the promised land, but the wilderness was refining them. And those that chose not to allow the refining died in the wilderness, but those who submitted and believed were able to enter into the promised land by faith! See, the Israelites were given the promised land from the beginning. It was God's promise to bring them there; it wasn’t a question if He would or not. That was given to them by grace, not by works, but because of the goodness of God. Yet then came the work of the potter on the road to the promised land to make them ready for their blessings and what God had for them. That’s the road that we are on, and as we continue to not waver in our Faith, we will obtain it. We have to bend to the potter and allow the refiner to refine us, or else the deceitfulness of sin will cause unbelief in our lives. It’s hard to believe who you are in Christ and what you have in Him and what He has for you when we keep seeing these unrefined parts of ourselves that we won’t deal with. It makes it that much harder to believe because we get discouraged by what we see. We need to allow God to remove the discouragement by allowing Him to remove the thing in us that is discouraging us. This is the price we need to pay, to put ourselves on the altar daily and allow God to burn up everything that is not of God, whatever God is dealing with in that moment. Just surrender. Then it will be easy to believe the Word again. You will be stepping into more faith and Glory. You will have boldness before God.
We need to go boldly to the throne of Grace in time of need, in time of mercy. When we want to be hard on ourselves, we need to drink His grace. When we sin or fall short. Grace. A righteous man falls 7 times and gets back up and still remains a righteous man. Why? Because of the grace of God, undeserved favor, undeserved righteousness. Like Paul spoke. By the Grace of God, I am what I am (1 Corinthians 15:10). See, we are who we are in Christ by the grace of God. He freely gave us, now we freely give. The Kingdom wasn’t given to us grudgingly but graciously, without hesitation. See, now we have to give each other grace as we drink His grace daily. His grace is a throne. It is authority in the Spirit. When the devil makes us feel disqualified to move in what God called us to move in, we go boldly to the throne of Grace, into that undeserved favor, power, and authority, and come out boldly and cast him out. The grace of God qualifies us. Don’t take His grace as a license to sin; take it as a license to cast out the devil and lay hold of the power to overcome him and access the victory you have in Christ over him!
By Joe Pinto
FREE HOT BUFFET: https://www.youtube.com/user/behouseoftruth/videos
FREE BOOKS: https://www.hothouseoftruth.com/free-book-download/
Comments (0)
Add a Comment