Jesus Christ is Grace and He is Truth
At the outset of our blog, we laid hold on the theme of grace and as it rolled along, we stepped up the order to include the theme of grace and truth and I quoted that scripture from the Gospel according to John (he was the disciple whom Jesus had a special love for)The verse reads, “for the law was given by Moses but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Grace and Truth…they go together like two peas in a pod, like hand in glove, like they were meant for each other; at least that is my observation. And the reason is that Jesus is grace and truth. He is all grace and He is all truth. My dad was a man of great integrity….his word was his bond as they say. So much so that he would tell the customs officer everything we had brought over from the U.S. before the guy could even ask, sometimes to the chagrin of my mother. If the guy don’t ask ….don’t tell, right? Shades of Bill Clinton here. Don’t ask, don’t tell? Remember that policy? But dad would tell for fear that perhaps holding back and not volunteering might somehow be a lie. Truth was so extremely important to him.
And even in church, if the pastor preached a particularly
convicting sermon and gave an opportunity for folks to go forward, Dad who was a stalwart of faith, who loved Jesus with all his heart would go up sometimes with those who were considered the sinners for prayer and I used to think, Dad why are you up there? You shouldn’t be up there now, wait for another call to Christians. But I realized later on that his heart was so tender toward God that he didn’t want anything in his life, be it an attitude, a thought or a deed that was unlike Christ to go on unchecked. He couldn’t harbour evil in his heart without feeling conviction.
I have battled things like that in my life and I too feel conviction when I am in the presence of the Holy Spirit. And I too have to ask forgiveness and the Truth comes to set me free. In a Bible study a couple of weeks ago I read from Hebrews chapter 3 verse 1. “Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus” When we consider Him and our calling and our confession, and we realize what He has done for us, doesn’t that cause us to surrender everything that is in us to Him? Doesn’t that cause us to remove the beam in our own eye before we try to operate on our brother’s eye? Doesn’t it bring conviction where conviction is necessary? When we consider Jesus and realize our calling we must know that we have been called to righteousness and holy living. In 2 Cor. Ch. 10 and vs 1-8 the apostle speaks of a warfare that we are in as children of God. 1)“Now I, Paul, MYSELF AM PLEADING WITH YOU BY THE MEEKNESS AND GENTLENESS OF Christ—who in presence am lowly among you, but being absent am bold toward you. 2)But I beg you when I am present I may not be bold with that confidence by which I intend to be bold against some, who think of us as if we walked according to the flesh.
3) For though we walk in the flesh, we do not walk according to the flesh. 4) For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God for pulling down strongholds, 5) casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of CHRIST.”
How we see it in the political world in our own country of Canada in our times. Things that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God, for example the marrying of same sex couples. This is an abomination in the sight of God! You cannot turn on a television program today without the theme of illicit living; ungodliness is the order of that industry. And our own city government where I live is condoning all kinds of ungodliness. We need to think about this come next election in our city. The battle is on; people of God and we have a calling and it is a call to righteousness, to Godliness and it’s a call that I for one am ready to give up anything that is not what He wants in my life. Like Dad, who was so tender toward God’s leading, I too want to rid my self of every weight and the sin that so easily besets. That is found in Hebrews 12:1
Hebrews 12:28 speaks of our heavenly calling and how we should live in the light of it; “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. Verse 29 is awesome, “For our God is a consuming fire.”
Anyone care to be consumed by fire? If not then serve God acceptably. Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ.
At the outset of our blog, we laid hold on the theme of grace and as it rolled along, we stepped up the order to include the theme of grace and truth and I quoted that scripture from the Gospel according to John (he was the disciple whom Jesus had a special love for)The verse reads, “for the law was given by Moses but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Grace and Truth…they go together like two peas in a pod, like hand in glove, like they were meant for each other; at least that is my observation. And the reason is that Jesus is grace and truth. He is all grace and He is all truth. My dad was a man of great integrity….his word was his bond as they say. So much so that he would tell the customs officer everything we had brought over from the U.S. before the guy could even ask, sometimes to the chagrin of my mother. If the guy don’t ask ….don’t tell, right? Shades of Bill Clinton here. Don’t ask, don’t tell? Remember that policy? But dad would tell for fear that perhaps holding back and not volunteering might somehow be a lie. Truth was so extremely important to him.
And even in church, if the pastor preached a particularly
convicting sermon and gave an opportunity for folks to go forward, Dad who was a stalwart of faith, who loved Jesus with all his heart would go up sometimes with those who were considered the sinners for prayer and I used to think, Dad why are you up there? You shouldn’t be up there now, wait for another call to Christians. But I realized later on that his heart was so tender toward God that he didn’t want anything in his life, be it an attitude, a thought or a deed that was unlike Christ to go on unchecked. He couldn’t harbour evil in his heart without feeling conviction.
I have battled things like that in my life and I too feel conviction when I am in the presence of the Holy Spirit. And I too have to ask forgiveness and the Truth comes to set me free. In a Bible study a couple of weeks ago I read from Hebrews chapter 3 verse 1. “Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus” When we consider Him and our calling and our confession, and we realize what He has done for us, doesn’t that cause us to surrender everything that is in us to Him? Doesn’t that cause us to remove the beam in our own eye before we try to operate on our brother’s eye? Doesn’t it bring conviction where conviction is necessary? When we consider Jesus and realize our calling we must know that we have been called to righteousness and holy living. In 2 Cor. Ch. 10 and vs 1-8 the apostle speaks of a warfare that we are in as children of God. 1)“Now I, Paul, MYSELF AM PLEADING WITH YOU BY THE MEEKNESS AND GENTLENESS OF Christ—who in presence am lowly among you, but being absent am bold toward you. 2)But I beg you when I am present I may not be bold with that confidence by which I intend to be bold against some, who think of us as if we walked according to the flesh.
3) For though we walk in the flesh, we do not walk according to the flesh. 4) For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God for pulling down strongholds, 5) casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of CHRIST.”
How we see it in the political world in our own country of Canada in our times. Things that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God, for example the marrying of same sex couples. This is an abomination in the sight of God! You cannot turn on a television program today without the theme of illicit living; ungodliness is the order of that industry. And our own city government where I live is condoning all kinds of ungodliness. We need to think about this come next election in our city. The battle is on; people of God and we have a calling and it is a call to righteousness, to Godliness and it’s a call that I for one am ready to give up anything that is not what He wants in my life. Like Dad, who was so tender toward God’s leading, I too want to rid my self of every weight and the sin that so easily besets. That is found in Hebrews 12:1
Hebrews 12:28 speaks of our heavenly calling and how we should live in the light of it; “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. Verse 29 is awesome, “For our God is a consuming fire.”
Anyone care to be consumed by fire? If not then serve God acceptably. Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ.
posted by Randall | 7:55 a.m.
1 Comments:
It is so true that Grace and truth go together. If we aren't truthful with our self about what we need GOd to help us and forgive us for then how can He extent His grace towards us. TO be 100% truthful should be the aim of all Gods children and if we slip we have the sure knowledge that HIS grace is sufficent for everything we may need. B&G
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