Grace

Last week, I wrote about the power of God’s love to set us free from the Law, from sin, and to give us the ability to pour out grace and love others. This week, I want to take it to another level, with the intention of helping clarify what God is doing in our lives.
I have probably written more blogs about the grace of God than anything else, and I know I preach on it more than anything else. I am consumed with God’s grace. It has the power to change me. Before I knew about the awesome grace of God, I was bound in my feelings, emotions, temptations, and struggles. 
This week, I have been meditating on a passage in Titus. Paul writes this letter with the intention to remind Titus what to teach the people he has been called to shepherd. So Paul writes to teach men to be temperate, self-controlled, filled with love and patience, and to teach the women to be reverent, not gossipers or slanderers. The young women should be filled with love, self-controlled, and kind. Young men should be examples of all things good, filled with integrity, and self-controlled. And then Paul writes a strong passage to Titus:
“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say, ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.”- Titus 2:11-12
Do you see it? Paul writes about what the grace of God does. The grace of God doesn’t teach us to sin and get away with it. In fact, it teaches us to say no to sin, to selfish desires, to worldly passions, and to the desire to reject God. I believe this clarifies the why, as to “Why must we teach the grace of God so strongly?” Man’s thoughts are not God’s thoughts, clearly, and man thinks that rules, boundaries, and limitations help us to manage our selfish desires, passions, and sins. However, God says He created Grace to do that. 
To God, the law was given in order to enslave us to those things, therefor, the rules and limitations that we so greatly value actually bind us to the things we think they will help us to stay away from. For example, if I lived in a house with 30 rooms, but every time I entered 1 room I felt fear, I would choose to never enter that room. I would limit myself to 29 rooms. That seems great, but what happens if in another room I began to feel lustful? I would have to stop going in that room, and I would be limited to 28. And what if every time I entered a certain room I remembered a fight I had with someone, and it made me mad? I would then be limited to 27 rooms. Soon, I would find myself bound to a single room, afraid to leave it… Rules, boundaries, and limitations don’t set us free. They enslave us to a lifestyle that is quite the opposite. I’m not free at all. I would own a house with 30 rooms, but be forced to only live in the 1 (and actually be filled with fear to ever leave). 
The grace of God is the complete opposite. It shows us our value, which is: God sent His only Son to die for us, to pay for all of our sins, both past and future, so that we could be free. The grace of God also shows God’s love for us. It doesn’t lead us from one fear to another, His love sets us free from fear by literally casting all fear out of us. His grace demonstrates the power of His love. As we learn and grow in our understanding of the power of His grace, we become motivated to honor Him, and so we change our desires, from selfish passions to selfless- godly passions. We become obsessed with advancing the Kingdom. We become obsessed with helping people get free from their sins and backwards thinking. We become obsessed with helping Christians that don’t understand God’s grace, by teaching them and showing them what Holy Spirit can do. 
The more we pursue His grace, the knowledge of it, the experience of it, the depth of it… the more free we become, and thusly the more determined we desire to share it with others. This is the power of God’s grace. It doesn’t just cover up sin. It gives us the ability to live truly godly lives. We can live in our 30 room house without fear, enjoying the entire house, oblivious to the temptations, fears, and struggles that used to dominate our lives. Are those things gone completely? No. But they no longer dominate us. Instead, they only serve as a reminder to who we used to be, to who we’ve become because of the wonderful grace of God. 
God’s grace is more than just an idea or theory. It is the power of God to bring transformation, and it sets us free from everything else. It’s easy to say no to something you don’t want. The only way to change your desires is to find something better. There is nothing better than the grace of God. Bless you…