Category: grace | Page 3 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

The Gift of Grace

Been reading a book that explained grace in less than 306 pages.

So in Christ God did for man what neither he, no one else, nor anything else could do for him. That is the very essence of grace… grace means that God gives us what we need, not what we deserve.
Originally the Greek word rendered “grace” meant to make a gift, then to forgive a debt, then to forgive a wrong, and finally to forgive sin. So basically grace is a gift, as expressed in Romans 3:24. Literally, “Being declared righteous as a gift by his grace through the full redemption, the one in Christ Jesus.”
Note that salvation is not “out of yourselves” or “out of works” as the source. It is “of God the gift”. It is by grace made possible in the individual through his faith. Good works are the fruit, not the root, of salvation.

I’ve never heard it explained that way. Grace is a gift. We can’t earn a gift. A person doesn’t beg for a gift. A person can’t ask for a gift and it still be a true gift. A real gift- at least to me- is undeserved, unexpected, unmerited, and completely free (it doesn’t come with strings attached- such as ‘do this and you’ll get it,’ ‘do that and you can keep it’).

Also a gift, by it’s very nature of being a gift, cannot be something we earned. (If we earned it, it’s a wage. We earned our wage- Rom 6:23. Don’t like the wages. The gift is much better!)

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But wait… we shouldn’t stray too far that way, or we’ll get an “anything goes” attitude! No, not if we’re sincere. If I get a gift from someone, what should I do with it? I’d be ungrateful if I flung any gift away, but if it’s something I need, I know I need it, and I refuse to use it, then how much more so!! Yet the giver doesn’t take that gift back. He doesn’t come, knock on the door, and say “Pardon me, I noticed you haven’t used my wonderful gift. Give it back so I can give it to someone more appreciative!” He might not give me more gifts, but he certainly won’t take away the gift I’ve been given.

Sure, we could toss a gift aside. We could refuse it. But if we love the giver, we’ll value and treasure the gift, and the gift will mean that much more. And in loving the giver, we’ll want to give back what small tokens we can.

And to me that’s freedom. We can follow rules because we have to in order to earn something unobtainable, or we can rest assured knowing we’ll be given what we need, responding freely, in love, to the One who gave so much to us. Each might look the same outwardly, but one is done from fear, while the other is done through faith, from a cheerful, willing heart, the overflow of an abundance of the Giver’s love.

Grace And Works

What can we ever do that will be considered good enough for an almighty, righteous, holy God? We’re human, He’s God. We’re born in sin and shapen in iniquity, He’s the creator of all things. Will skirts or long hair or a lack of jewelry ever be sufficient?

I know the standard answer in churches I’ve been to has been that we do those things because we love Him, not to be saved. Yet if a person doesn’t do those things, are they considered saved? The answer to that is generally “by their fruits you shall know them.” What fruits? The Bible nowhere mentions clothes or hair as fruits. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, kindness, gentleness, meekness. And thorns are definitely not cut hair, pants and makeup. Attitudes can get prickly, but the way we dress doesn’t hurt others any time we get near them. If your imagination immediately jumped to a hooker or stripper and the way she dresses, and you thought, yes, the way they dress can hurt us, I’ll remind you that the way that person dresses doesn’t hurt you unless you have a fault that keeps you from fleeing that situation or leads you to lust. But lying, backbiting and slander can hurt a person even if they haven’t done anything wrong.

Thinking about all of this last night I realized that when we do certain things to try to be saved or look down on others as unsaved if they don’t do them, we place ourselves in a very dangerous situation: we lift ourselves up on an equal with God. God is holy and righteous. Our righteousness, the very best we can do, is as filthy rags to Him. No matter how “good” we try to be, we still fall short, because He knows our hearts. He knows the greed or pride that motivates, even if it’s just a tiny bit of our motivation.

That doesn’t mean that we should stop doing the right things or stop being good. But being good is not a list of rules and dress codes, it’s a mindset. It’s a matter of a right heart and a clean conscience. And it doesn’t involve judging others for the ways we think they might not measure up to us.

What is good? Jesus himself asked a man why he called him good, since there’s none good but God. And what should we do, if Christianity isn’t about being good? Well, when we live in Jesus, and He lives in us, won’t His goodness shine through us? But what is His goodness? It’s not dress standards, it’s love. Compassion, mercy, gentleness… grace. Those are the things we should focus on, not externals. Anyone can dress a certain way, but true fruit- love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, meekness- who can imitate those for any length of time? Who can even live like that most of the time?

If those Christian attitudes are more difficult to display than long sleeves, shouldn’t they be the focus? And if we know we can’t produce those fruits in our lives consistently on our own, then can we take pride in living that way? Absolutely not. Because living with love, joy, peace, patience… having those in our lives takes something more than a credit card and the right clothes in the closet. It takes Christ.

Pausing for a moment

I want to pause a moment from my other series and discuss on something major. Please feel free to offer insight as this subject is something I ponder and study quite often. The subject of tongues.

As I mentioned in my previous writings of “I Just Couldn’t Stay” this is kind of vulnerable for me to write about. My main questions are do tongues have to be an actual language for it to be real, or validated? How about where did the doctrine of the tongues in Acts are different from the tongues in Corinthians? I need some scriptures that say just that to see to difference.

Why is ok to add to the scripture the phrase “with the evidence of speaking in tongues” when it is not there at all? Yes, they spoke in tongues, but it doesn’t say “You shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues.” How come no other apostle in the New Testament spoke about tongues other than Paul? Why didn’t the others speak on it, especially the ones that where there on Pentecost day? If you have reference where they did please let me know.

I can remember some of the teachings and experiences on tongues in my former churches. The church I attend now believes in the “evidence of speaking in tongues” but not as a requirement for salvation. Salvation happens at repentance and placing ones’ faith in Jesus.

I ask these questions because I struggled in my early walk with Jesus. Most of the time what I heard come out of my mouth was not an actual language. When I asked about it was sometimes said “It’s okay mines sound different as well.” Then how is tongues languages? Does it have to be languages or what?

In Acts tongues were clear cut languages that were understood on the day of Pentecost. I go back to Pentecost because if you hold to the soteriology of Acts 2:38 then those tongues are what is important to get you saved. The tongues in Corinthians are just for a few folks who have the Holy Ghost. You can see where someone would be very concerned if they aren’t speaking something just right. If our whole salvation is based on water and Spirit doctrine, and tongues is what lets us know if we have the Spirit and you can’t get the Holy Ghost without speaking in tongues, then we better make sure it is done right, right?

I have heard ministers say some people fake tongues in their churches. I have so many things I could say about that but I’m not. During my early years, I can assure you I was not faking. I tried my best to speak in what I thought at the time was tongues. I would panic if I didn’t speak in tongues on a daily or weekly basis. When I told the pastor, who talked to me after my conversion that I got the Holy Ghost I was not faking. I truly believed I had gotten the Holy Ghost and no one was going to tell me different. I wasn’t going to spend the next few months and years fighting at the altar.

However, as time grew on I doubted that. I didn’t hear languages. I heard something I can’t explain. I prayed and prayed that God would give me a new tongue. After a while I believed he did. I was fine for awhile. Then I become enamored with tongues. It was a big deal to me. I reasoned that my whole salvation was tongues. If I didn’t speak in tongues I was not saved. When I went down to pray I would get horrible headaches from praying so hard to “stir up the gift that was inside me” ie. tongues. I hated to pray sometimes at home, for prayer meant tongues. Tongues, tongues, tongues, I had to have them. Forget faith, that was for only financial needs, healing needs, marriage needs, my husband to get saved needs, tongues were for salvation. I didn’t even know how to have faith for my salvation. Who needed that when you had tongues?

I would see people be in church for months and years to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. The teachings I would hear on it was some didn’t get it because they had hidden sin. They were hiding hidden anger, porn, or whatever that kept them from getting it. One story was about a cop and God expected so much out of him because he carried a gun to work so he had to really get with it to get the Holy Ghost. I am not saying these stories are not true, I wasn’t there when the stories where taking place, only there to hear tell about them.

My questions are why does God make it so hard for one to get saved? Why do we have to get perfect for him to give us his Gift of the Spirit? I have some new beliefs on tongues and the Holy Spirit. Still sorting out some things on it though. What say you?….

A taste of grace

On my way to Missouri last weekend, I heard Hank Hanegraff on the radio responding to a question about suicide:

“First of all, you can’t say that suicide is the unforgivable sin, because no single act is an unforgivable sin. The unforgivable sin is a continual ongoing rejection of forgiveness. And those who refuse forgiveness through Christ will spend eternity separated from his love and grace. Those who sincerely desire forgiveness can be absolutely certain that God will never spurn them…”

I’ve heard that anyone who killed themselves would die with unrepented sin in their lives and go straight to hell. I was taught that blasphemy was the unforgivable sin and was taught that even joking about tongues (kidding around and imitating someone, for instance) might be blasphemy and shouldn’t be risked, because no one knows where God might draw the line and strike down.

Both these concepts show a judgmental, angry God, not an Abba Father. So Hank’s statement really stood out to me, like this:

“First of all, you can’t say that suicide is the unforgivable sin, because no single act is an unforgivable sin. The unforgivable sin is a continual ongoing rejection of forgiveness. And those who refuse forgiveness through Christ will spend eternity separated from his love and grace. Those who sincerely desire forgiveness can be absolutely certain that God will never spurn them...”

This helped me a lot. I don’t have to be afraid that I might make a mistake and then die in a car wreck before I could ask forgiveness of whatever it was and go to hell. I don’t have to be scared that I might accidentally blaspheme the Holy Ghost by shouting “in the flesh” or uttering some syllables in imitation of tongues when it was really just me. I don’t have to run around all day muttering “Forgive me, oh, God, I’m sorry. Forgive me!” in order to insure salvation. Wow, what a relief.

Then I got home, and someone gave me some books. One of the books was The Shack. I’ve been avoiding that one. It was preached against at my former church. Really, really bad book, right up there with Christianity without the Cross. Duh. I should have known by that alone that I should definitely read it! There are some good points in it… including a discussion about how God is often viewed as judgmental and wrathful, but Jesus is looked at as Savior. That people pray to God when they want revenge or expect anger and judgment, and pray to Jesus when they want forgiveness. And as I read that I realized how few times I heard Jesus preached at my former church, unless it was as an image of the ultimate sacrifice and the wrath and judgment of God! Jesus is God in flesh, and Pentecostals are supposed to be Oneness, but the ones I knew still focused on an all-powerful God ready to squash us at any moment, rather than on the Savior who had made a way for us, and done what we couldn’t do!

Anyway, I’m still working through this thing called grace. That was a whole lot to think on in just one week. Grace is kind of going to be a quantum leap for me, since I never was really taught about grace as a child or an adult. But I’m beginning to really like the sound of it!

Books on Grace Giveaway!

We are still celebrating hitting 100 blogs on August 6. 🙂

We have given away books for years as part of the spiritualabuse.org ministry and this will be our fourth one via this new blog area. This is your chance to receive one or more books on grace. We have given away many books on the subject through the years as people from unhealthy churches often have set aside God’s grace when they become caught up in the performance trap.

Up for grabs are several used books:

~~One hardback copy of The Grace Awakening by Charles Swindoll. The dust jacket isn’t in the best condition but the inside is good.~~ TAKEN
One hardback copy of Philip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing About Grace. TAKEN
~~Two paperback copies of Philip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing About Grace. One copy has some highlighting and markings, but is still very readable~~. TAKEN

The first people with a USA mailing address who respond will receive their choice of book(s) at no charge to them. To respond, just leave a comment for this post. Please understand that comments require approval unless you have previously commented. So while it may look like you are first or second, there may be someone ahead of you who comment is pending. Be sure to use your actual email address when setting up to comment as I will be contacting you. (Do not put the email or address in your actual comment.)

Be sure to mention in your comment which book(s) you would like and you may refer to them by number.

You still have the opportunity to receive one or more books on Boundaries by Henry Cloud & John Townsend here. You must comment separately on that blog to make a request.