Tag Archives: fruit

Dis-Graceful Conduct

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I have heard and read so much against the so-called hyper-grace movement lately that I feel like I must speak up.  People have stopped preaching the Gospel so that they can preach against the preachers who preach about Grace.  Now who do you think is really behind that?  If you want a clue, let me say it again: People have stopped preaching the Gospel so that they can preach against the preachers who preach about Grace.

And here’s what they say about them: that they are teaching people that there is no need for repentance.  I have never heard any of the grace preachers saying anything of the sort.  It’s ridiculous!  Joseph Prince is the main preacher accused of preaching hyper-grace.  I have never heard Joseph Prince preach that sin is OK with God.

But what I have heard is his accusers mixing law in with the message of grace.  Why would they do that?  Because they don’t really understand the power of grace.  They use the law as a means of controlling new believers until they know how to behave.  If Joseph Prince and the other grace preachers are guilty of anything, it’s trusting the Holy Spirit too much.  That’s right, they leave the picky little transitional tweaks up to the Holy Spirit.  Girls, new believers, that haven’t figured out yet that they need to dress more modestly, and men who still cuss.  Rather than wag his finger at them, he preaches the message of grace.

The message of grace is the message of how much God loves us, and it’s that love that changes us from the inside out.  We came to Christ based on love.  It is an ever-deepening knowledge of that love that gives us the power to change.  Not a change based on external pressure, but change born of our own reciprocal love for a God who loves us much more than we can ever understand.  It is our love for God that makes us want to live our lives in such a way that we please Him and bring glory to His Name.

Anybody who claims to be born again, but continues in sin is not really born again (1 John 1:6 & 2:15).  The litmus test for this is fruit.  What kind of fruit does their life bear?  If they are continuing in sin, that will be obvious to all sooner or later.  If someone is determined to continue in their sin, no amount of preaching or “discipling” by controlling their behavior will work in the end.

But when someone really grasps “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (Ephesians 3:18), there really is only one response: to live to please Him.  They don’t have to constantly check themselves for hidden sins and doctrinal error because they willingly lay aside their flesh and begin to live in the Spirit and to walk in the power of that same grace that saved them.  That’s why it’s important to preach the Gospel of Grace, and to keep emphasizing the love of God.  Judgment is surely and swiftly coming.  But while the fear of Judgment might get some people in the door, it is the love that saves them, and love that helps them to truly walk in the “newness of life,” (Romans 6:4).

Believing that you must control new believers is flesh and it is unbelief.  Grace is available not only to save, but to empower the new life.  Let go and let God.

Gracious Grace!

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Day Eighteen

This morning I read yet another rant against grace, and now I just can’t keep silent any longer.

Grace is the power of God to save.  Power.  To save.  People who want to reduce grace only to a salvation event fail to understand the power behind grace.

On the other hand, people who want to use grace as a license to sin fail to understand the true liberty of grace, and also the necessity of repentance (read Romans chapter 6).

Grace has been granted once and for all to cover our every sin past, present, and future.  That should be obvious, since this all happened long before any of us alive today were born (or our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents, etc.).

Grace is also the power to walk in the newness of life, once we’ve repented.  Without repentance, we are not allowed access to grace.  Grace is granted only on the condition that we have repented.  Repentance is literally turning around and going the opposite direction.  If my life didn’t produce fruit that shows my repentance (Matthew 3:8), then I also wouldn’t truly have grace.  Therefore, grace is not a license to sin.

Grace gives us power to live this new life through the same thing that brought us to the cross: love—our response to Jesus’ love.  “We love Him because He first loved us,” (1 John 4:19, NKJV).  Love and grace are inseparable.  Grace was granted to us because of Jesus’ love for us.  If He hadn’t died for us, then we couldn’t say that He ever loved us, and grace would be an unknown and unknowable concept.  So since love and grace are inseparable, if we love Him, we also have the power (through grace) to live a life that is pleasing to Him.

The problem is us, not grace.  Our love is imperfect.  We tend to think of love as an emotion.  Love is a decision—a sacrificial decision.  Love made Jesus lay down His life for us (John 15:13).  If we waver and struggle with sin, it’s because we love the world more than we love Jesus.  And in that case, we need to go back to step one: repentance.  If we don’t do repentance right, then our whole Christian walk is worthless—worse than worthless because it casts a negative light on the Gospel.

But to go too far the other way risks falling back into legalism.  Legalism is a rejection of grace.  It says to Jesus, “No thanks, I can do it for myself.”  For more about how I feel about legalism, look at my recent post: Stop Complicating the Simple Things.

Also check out an article that I found in my inbox today from Charisma News: What’s Wrong with Grace?  Grace gets under the legalists’ skin, but it’s also abused by some.

Thank God for grace—it is Amazing!  God is good!

God’s Standard

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Grace is amazing!  I’m so thankful for grace that saved me through no effort of my own.  After all, I could never live up to God’s standard without the work of salvation by grace in the death of Jesus on the cross.  All our good works are like filthy rags to God (Isaiah 64:6—some translations actually say “like menstrual rags”).

But even if grace is free, it doesn’t mean that we are excused forever from doing good works.  Good works are not how we get into Heaven, but they do have value.  Here are some of my thoughts about good works and the fruit (results) of those works:

  • Good works are something that we were created to do (Ephesians 2:10)
  • God’s work of salvation in us will come out as good fruit (Matthew 12:33)
  • Our work will bear fruit, either good fruit or bad (Matthew 7:16-19)
  • We are expected to bear fruit for the Kingdom of God (Matthew 3:8)
  • If we don’t bear fruit, the Father will cut us off (John 15:2)
  • We will bear fruit if we stay close to Jesus (John 15:5)
  • Our work will be tested (1 Corinthians 3:12-14)
  • It’s important to keep doing good works because we will reap a harvest if we do not give up (Galatians 6:9)

We could never save ourselves by good works, so that’s not the point of doing good works.  When we do “good works” in our flesh, we produce filthy rags.  Yes, even those things that seem good are nothing without the Holy Spirit’s guidance.  So you can spend your whole life working alongside Mother Teresa, but if God didn’t call you there, it’s all wasted effort.  And even if you are called there, but don’t spend daily time in prayer, seeking God’s face, it’s wasted effort.

Good works should produce good fruit (results) for the Kingdom—fruit that lasts.  So to produce good fruit, we’ve got to stay close to Jesus through the Holy Spirit.

Now examine yourself.  Think about how you spend your time each day.  How much time do you spend praying and reading God’s Word and then doing good works that He’s called you to do?  Now compare that to how much time you waste in front of the TV, at the computer, or playing with electronic gadgets.  (I’m not perfect, either, just in case you’re wondering.)  The world has lots of ways of seducing us away from our first love (God), so it takes some effort to resist those temptations.  Even things that are not sins, strictly speaking, can be sins if they take us away from those things that we should be doing.

So thanks to Jesus, we’ve gotten a boost that gets us entry into Heaven.  But now it’s up to us to do the good works that will bear lasting fruit for the Kingdom.  And these things we do not just because it’s required of us, but out of a grateful heart.

Once you do surrender your will completely to Him, you’ll find that His yoke really is easy and His burden is light.

God is good.