Walk

340. Take a Grace Break!

 

Wow!  With all this “walk stuff”, you might be getting tired of trying to remember all the things that are your responsibility before God.  It is time for a “Grace Break”.

Remember there is a balance.  First, we learned to SIT before we can WALK.  You may have been reading 40 or so lessons about WALKING and perhaps you have forgotten some of the SITTING.  Well, sit back, relax, and take a break.

God does not want you to get all worked up about all the things you must DO for Him in order to earn His acceptance.  You are already accepted.  Ephesians 1:6 (KJV) says, “To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”  Notice that HE has made us accepted, not the things that we did.

You might ask, “Then why did you just give me 40 lessons on walking?”  The answer is that we need to know how to make choices.  Even though we are saved by grace, we have choices to make daily.  We need to know that when we make the wrong choices, we should come and forsake them, repent, get cleansed, and the life of God in us will take over.  The commands in the New Testament are like a model or a plan to show us what the ideal is to be like.  It is like a mirror to show us when we do not live up to the pattern.  But the solution is not to try harder.  The solution is to turn to God and allow His life to be lived in us.

We don’t have two natures like some Christians declare.  Some say we have to carry around a sin nature all our lives, struggling against it.  They even show Scriptures to prove it.  Well, this is not true.  Our old nature has been crucified.  Read Romans 6 and you will see the truth of this.  Then why, you might say, do we feel this old nature?  Our old nature is like a tree that has been cut down, but some of the leaves have not died as yet.  Our brain has memory waves, or actual electronic waves that tell us to act a certain way.  But these are only old memories, or tapes that play in our mind; they are not really our nature.  Our real nature is the life of God that has been inserted in us when we were born again.  In order to be born again, you would have had to die first.  Otherwise, you would be a freak!  God did not make us freaks, but sometimes we act that way.

Which was first, the chicken or the egg?  John 14:21 (KJV) says, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” John 14:23 says, “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.’”

So many Christians take this verse as a burden.  They think that they must obey God in order to prove their love for Him.  But, actually, it is just the opposite.  The proof that they really love Him is their strong intense desire to obey Him.  If you do not have a strong desire to obey Him, your problem is that you have not fallen in love with Him enough.  More obedience will not cause Him to love you more.  You must fall in love more, then obedience will just naturally come.

Our flesh and the devil try to keep us in a performance mode.  Work more, rededicate more, crawl on your belly like a good-for-nothing worm when you mess up and sin.  No, no, that is not the way the Father received the Prodigal son when he came home.  He ran out and covered him when the son saw his foolish ways.  The son was already forgiven, accepted and received, but didn’t know it.

The problem is in our thinking.  We feel that we must clean up our flesh, our old nature and make it holy in order to please God.  No way!  The only solution for our flesh is for it to die.

And actually, it has already died!  Galatians 2:20 (KJV) says, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”  God is just waiting for us to reach the end of our self-sufficiency in order to get us to realize this fact.  Our life probably will be a series of difficulties, which God designs for “breaking”.  Breaking is coming to the end of ourselves so that Christ can live His life in us and through us.  Only Christ can live the Christian life.  We must realize we are dead!

The answer is to fall in love with Jesus more and more.  Jesus wants an intimate relationship with us, like a husband and a wife.  Look at the Song of Solomon in the Bible.  It describes the most intimate love relationship between a bride and a husband.  Both have a strong intense drive to find the other so that they may enjoy the relationship.  Well, God wants you to strive all right, but not to please Him, but rather to find Him.  When you find Him, you will fall in love with Him; there is no other choice.

Take some time pursuing Him, but not with your works and performance.  Take time to just sit with Him.  Get into “The Flowing River” lesson, and get into His presence.  Maybe you are not accustomed to this kind of relationship with anybody.  Maybe your marriage has been a harsh legalistic thing, consisting of “you should do this, and you need to do that”.  Well, this kind of relationship with God will change your human relationships also.  Once you have a grace relationship with God, you can have a grace relationship with your spouse, your children, and your friends.

Get into the Word of God with the attitude of “I am accepted, I am forgiven, Jesus wants to just hang out with me and love me”.  Practice His presence.  Go to His Word as a love letter, not as a rulebook.

Our enemy the devil deceives us.  Paul was coming against the Galatians when they got saved by the Gospel of Grace, but thought they had to get into legalism to please God.  He told them that they have been bewitched, by a demon, to feel this way.  Galatians 3:1 (KJV) says, “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?”

God does not expect us to live the Christian life.  He expects us to die to our old life and allow Christ to live HIS life through us.  This takes the burden off of us and puts it on Him Who can do it.

 

The burden we have is to take time to nurture the relationship.

The one commandment that Jesus gave us was in Mark 12:28-33.  Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, ‘Which is the first commandment of all?’ Jesus answered him, ‘The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.’ So the scribe said to Him, ‘Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other but He. And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices’” (Mark 12:28-33).

The problem with marriages, with children, with Christians, is not our failures with what we do.  No, the problem is that we don’t give enough value to relationships and intimacy.  We don’t take time to develop love between us.  Doing more is never the solution.  The solution with God is for us to rest in His love.  When we really find out how much God loves us, how much He desires to supply our needs, how much He desires to be our all in all, we will stop worrying about rules and regulations and will take more time in His Word and fellowshipping with Him.  This will lead to less of us, and more of Him in us.  It will lead to good works, but from love, not from obligation.  It will lead to a holy life, much holier than the legalists can work up.  But our clean holy life will not be our flesh trying to imitate God; no, it will be God in us, the perfect One living through us.

Matthew 11:28-30 says, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

This verse speaks for itself, except we might miss the “come to me”.  Coming to Jesus can take some time and work on our part.  If you notice in the Song of Solomon, the Maiden in this story sometimes had to go and use effort to find the Lord.

 

God wants us to rest from our efforts to please Him, but wants us to double our efforts to find Him.

 

What has stripped the seeming beauty

From the idols of the earth?

Not a sense of right or duty,

But the sight of peerless worth.

 

Not the crushing of those idols,

With its bitter void and smart;

But the beaming of His beauty,

The unveiling of His heart.

 

‘Tis that look that melted Peter,

‘Tis that face that Stephen saw,

‘Tis that heart that wept with Mary,

Can alone from idols draw:

 

Draw and win and fill completely,

Till the cup o’erflow the brim;

What have we to do with idols

Who have companied with Him?

 

Anonymous

 

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