Grace – Page 2 – Recovery In Christ Ministries

June 6, 2016

Supernatural Restraint

Religion will not teach us, who we are “In Christ“, so that we can walk in the Spirit, because, its leaders fear that they will loose control over us. See, when we learn, who we are in Christ, and walk in the Spirit, we will be free, but since religion derives its power from controlling, and exploiting us, they will not teach us the truth.

Sadly, religion performs its diabolical service, i.e., controlling, and exploiting its members, all in the name of God. Consequently, God’s name is held in derision by the unbelieving world. (Romans 2:24) Religion hurts God’s efforts to reach the unbelieving world, because the unbelievers recognize control and exploitation when they see it.

What is even sadder is that God’s people are so in love with Him, and so eager to please Him, that they are, by and large, blind to the fact that their religious institutions are controlling and exploiting them. God’s people mistakenly believe that God needs these corporate institutions to build Him a dwelling place on the earth, and spread His kingdom throughout it. God, however, doesn’t need them.

God told His people to go into the nations and make disciples, not to build large buildings, and require people to come to them, and pay for them. Believers go out into the world, and proclaim the gospel, and as a person believes the gospel, God comes to live in their body, and, by doing so, He enlarges His Body, and spreads His Kingdom.

The Body of Christ is not a physical body, in the form of some religious institution, no, the Body of Christ is a Spiritual organism. Likewise, God’s Kingdom is not a physical institution with tentacles that reach into politics, business, and entertainment, and slowly squeeze the players in these fields, until they submit to God. No, God’s Kingdom is within us, for it is a Spiritual Kingdom, which can only be entered by embracing God’s love, which is made known to us via the gospel. (1 Corinthians 12:13; Luke 17:21; 1 John 4:9-10)

The leaders of these religious institutions are not called to become rich, powerful, and influential, so they can, use their power, money or social influence to bring people to God. No, no one comes to Jesus, unless the Father draws him, through the Gospel. (John 6:44)

Now, am I saying that believers should not assemble together, at some location, in order to worship the Lord, encourage each other, and study the Scriptures? God forbid! The Scriptures are very clear: We should do these very things! (Hebrews 10:25; Ephesians 4:9-10)

We have gotten off track, however, and established cash-hungry religious institutions, which are run by “little caesars“, who like the Caesars of the old Roman Empire, believe that they are God-men, who demand absolute obedience, and can not be questioned. These God-men hear directly from God, and speak for Him, whereas his subjects do not. These priests stand between God, and His people, and give them their marching orders, which they dare not disobey.

This caesar mentality is not biblical, and in fact, it is antithetical to what the Bible teaches. The Bible clearly says we are all equal, i.e., we are all brothers. It says that the greatest among us, will be the one, who is the servant of all. It also says that those, who serve us, must not lord over us. (Matthew 23:8; Mark 10:42-45; 1 Peter 5:3)

Not only do these so called God-men priests stand in between us and God, and shut up the kingdom of heaven unto us, unless we obey them, as they steadily lord over us, and fleece us, they also attempt to bribe us into obeying God, and scare us into not disobeying Him. Usually, this entails obeying God so that He will bless us with wealth (most often by giving to the religious institution, or the caesar), and threats of sickness, poverty, death or Hell, if we dare disobey Him.

Does this sound a little familiar? It should! This is exactly what the Jewish religious leaders were doing to God’s people in Israel, when Jesus arrived. See, human nature has not changed since that time: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

In the Old Covenant, a person was saved by believing whatever God had said about the Promised Seed. After that, the law penalized disobedience, and rewarded obedience. So, the law determined the quality and length of your life, but it didn’t determine your salvation.

When a person was saved in the Old Covenant, the Holy Spirit did not enter his body, and abide with him. The law is what attempted to keep the believer on the “straight and narrow”. When the believer failed, he offered the prescribed sacrifice in order to be restored.

The situation is different in the New Covenant. Now, when we believe what God has said about the Promised Seed (Jesus), the Holy Spirit comes to live in our body. The Holy Spirit gives us new desires, and restrains us from doing evil. The law’s threats of curses, and promises of blessings are no longer needed, neither are its sacrifices. Thankfully, there is no longer a need to meticulously keep the law.

Don’t misunderstand: The law is good and holy, but our flesh is not. The law stirred up the diseased emotions in our flesh, which strengthened sin’s control over us, and this drove us to the sacrifices, which symbolized Jesus. The law was our schoolmaster that led us to Jesus. (Romans 7:8, 12, 14; Galatians 3:24)

Jesus kept the law perfectly, and earned the blessings that the law offered, and put away the curses it prescribed for disobedience. And since Jesus is in us, and we are in Him, our salvation, and our blessings have been secured forever, by His perfect obedience!

It is finished! We are blessed with every blessing that God has to give us! We are forever saved! We are the righteousness of God! We are Holy! There is nothing more that we can do to be more saved or more blessed! God in Christ paid it all, and did it all! Glory!

Now, hold on, wait a minute. This kinda steals the thunder away from the little caesars, and their religious institutions doesn’t it? Exactly: That is why they will not teach this in its entirety. The whole truth removes their ability to control, and exploit their members.

Caesar is afraid that without his promises of blessings, and threats of curses, he will not be able to expand his kingdom, and we will not obey God. The caesar’s empty promises and vain threats, however, are no longer needed. We now have the loving embrace of the Holy Spirit, who will change our evil desires, and motivate us to do good works, which glorify God, not caesar. (Galatians 5:17)

So what shall we say? Since we are free from the law, and under grace, shall we sin so grace will abound? Since it is finished, and God is not going to take away our blessings, or our salvation, shall we just live the way we want to, and go on sinning? God forbid!

The choice is yours: You can listen to the promises and threats of caesar, hoping that they will restrain you from doing evil, or you can embrace God’s loving restraint within you, the Holy Spirit, your supernatural restraint.

June 2, 2016

Follow the unseen

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1) Faith is the foundation that we stand upon, in order to receive that which God has promised, and it is the proof that we are seeking a reality, which we can’t see with our physical eyes, within our current temporal frame of reference.

Paul said that if we would walk in the Spirit, then we would not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. (Galatians 5:16) Paul also said that it was the standard operating procedure for a Christian to walk by faith, and not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7)

What Paul, and the writer of Hebrews, is telling us is that if we want to overcome our flesh, the devil, and the world, and receive what God has promised us, we must embrace the unseen reality that God says is real, based strictly on God’s promise that it is real, and live in that unseen reality, and let it guide us through this temporal realm.

God says that we can rise above the flesh, and live out our salvation, here on the earth, before we leave this corrupted flesh and enter into eternity in order to experience its fullness. (Philippians 2:12)

This is extremely important, because addiction occurs when we give ourselves completely over to the lust of our flesh. Our flesh craves comfort, and it is willing to sacrifice everything and everybody in our lives to get that comfort. Addicts are captives of their own flesh!

Consequently, the only real and lasting solution to addiction is to learn how to live and walk in the Spirit, and then live each day in the Spirit, so that the Spirit can direct each step in your earthly walk.

I know this seems like a nebulous statement, which is overwhelming. Just relax: Don’t worry, you will grow and learn how to live and walk in the Spirit, if you seek to live and walk in the Spirit. The more you study the Scriptures, and discover, who you really are, and exercise your spiritual senses to discern good and evil, the more proficient you will become at living and walking in the Spirit. (Hebrews 5:14)

Most people worry that they will mess up, and follow the flesh, while thinking they are following the Spirit. Let me assure you that you will, but that’s ok. Grace covers your sins and shortcomings. Just do the best you can, and exercise your spiritual senses. The results you get from your actions will let you know whether you are following the flesh, or the Spirit. Relax, God has you covered. (Romans 4:8)

Who are you?

It is imperative that we know, who we are, because knowing, who we are provides the framework that guides what we do. When I was an addict, I knew that I was an addict, so I did what addicts do. And for the most part, it didn’t bother me, because I was being who I was.

That all changed when I hit “rock-bottom”, and suddenly being an addict wasn’t fun, or comforting to my flesh anymore. It hadn’t been fun or comforting for a while, but rock bottom brought it to a head. I had to change in order to survive, and have any peace, or comfort.

What did I need to change? Did I simply need to put myself in a safe place where I couldn’t get drugs, until the chemical chains fell off my body? No, that was just the beginning. I had to become a new person with new desires. But how could I possibly become a new person?

Well, I stopped self-identifying as an addict, and self-identified as a born-again child of God. I embraced, with every fiber of my being, my new identity “in Christ”. That meant that I read the Scriptures, and chose to believe what God said I had become when His Spirit fused Himself with my spirit, which made me a totally new creature in Him.

Even though my physical eyes beheld the wreckage of my life, and “who” I had become, my spiritual eyes obtained momentary glimpses of who I really was in Christ, and the glorious future that He had planned for me. I felt a little psychotic, and people didn’t understand the goal that I was striving for, which was the high calling of God.

Accordingly, I could not afford to sit around in meetings and call myself an addict, and listen to people talk about drugs, and the carnage that comes with them. No, I had become a new person, so I had to forget those things that were in the past and press on towards the high calling of God in Christ. (Philippians 3:13-14)

The unseen reality

In my childhood, I suffered spiritual abuse, at the hand of institutionalized religion. The God they preached was angry with me, and the only way I could get on His good side was to “be good”, and do what He said to do. I thought that if I kept God’s laws, He would love me, and bless me. (This attitude is hard to shake, and it still rises up to torment me from time to time, and I have to cast it down.)

My spirit, the real me, lives in a corrupt flesh vessel (my body). My body was born into sin and corruption, so it has all kinds of diseased emotions, which move me towards sin, corruption, and death. The Bible calls these emotions, and the mindsets that correlate with them, “the flesh”. This is exactly what we need to overcome in the Spirit, so that we can live lives of peace, prosperity, and freedom.

Here’s the problem: God’s law actually strengthens the diseased emotions in our corrupt body, which increases sin’s control over our lives! (Romans 7:8) So, if we do not want sin to rule over us, we must not base our relationship with God on whether or not we keep His laws. (Romans 6:14) We must base our relationship with God on the grace that Jesus’ blood freely bestows upon us. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Yes, it is true. God loves and accepts us just the way we are, warts and all! (Romans 5:8) In Christ, you are holy, un-blamable, and un-reprovable. (Colossians 1:22) In Christ, you are the righteousness of God! (2 Corinthians 5:21) Jesus redeemed us for all eternity. (Hebrews 9:12) Jesus has given us eternal life. (John 6:47)

Even though we can’t see these things with our physical eyes, or feel like they are true, they are true! And if you will believe them, and live as though they are true, you will enter into God’s rest. (Hebrews 4:9-10) Not only will you rest in God, but this restfulness will defuse the diseased emotions that move you towards sin, so that you can overcome it. This is how you escape from the trap of addiction.

So, you can try to “be good” and earn God’s approval, and blessings by focusing on your sin problem, and fighting against it, or you can simply focus on, who you are, and what you have “in Christ”. If you choose to focus on your sin, and trying to defeat it, you will sink further into despair. If you choose, however, to focus on, who you are in Christ, you will reframe your life, and then, over a period of time, your behavior will conform to that new framework, and your desires will change. That is the solution. (What then? Shall we sin, so that grace should abound. No, God forbid. More on this in the next post)

So, here is the fundamental choice: Do we walk by sight, and follow what we see, or do we walk by faith, and follow the unseen?

October 18, 2013June 18, 2014

Grace is Enough

Are you struggling with drugs or alcohol? Grace is enough.

Are you struggling with porn? Grace is enough.

Are you struggling with overeating? Grace is enough.

Are you struggling with un-forgiveness? Grace is enough.

Are you struggling with pride or greed? Grace is enough.

Are you struggling with gossip? Grace is enough.

Are you struggling with fear? Grace is enough.

Are you struggling with rejection? Grace is enough.

Are you struggling with disease or lack? Grace is enough.

Are you struggling with brokenness? Grace is enough.

We are broken people, living in a broken world. Our brokenness manifests itself everyday, in a thousand different ways, and this troubles us because we know that there is only one way that leads to eternal life.

Grace is enough.

The Apostle Paul prayed three times, and asked Yeshua to remove a “thorn” that was in his flesh. Yeshua answered Paul, and told him that grace was enough. Yeshua did not remove the thorn from Paul’s flesh because it served as a constant reminder to him that he was a broken man, living in a broken world. This thorn caused this great man just enough pain to make him constantly aware of his lowly position before the Exalted Creator of the Universe. In other words, the thorn kept Paul humble and positioned to receive the grace that would develop his character.

Think about that for a moment. Yahweh’s Spirit inspired Paul to write most of the New Testament, but He allowed a painful thorn to remain in his flesh to develop his character. Yahweh did not put the thorn in Paul’s flesh, but He used that thorn to develop Paul’s character in order to equip him to fulfill his purpose in the Kingdom.

Paul wanted Yahweh to remove the thorn, but grace was enough.

I have thorns in my flesh. Over the years, I have asked Yeshua to remove these thorns. As I have matured spiritually, Yeshua has removed some of the thorns. However, some of the thorns are still embedded deep in my flesh, and they continue to cause me a lot of pain. I do not like the struggle, pain, and brokenness that these thorns cause, but grace is enough.

How about you? Do you have a thorn in your flesh that is causing you a lot of pain? Does this thorn constantly remind you that you are a broken human being, who is living in a broken world? Does this thorn keep you dependent on Yahweh’s grace? Is Yahweh allowing this thorn to remain in your flesh so that He can mature you and change your character in order to equip you to fulfill your purpose in the Kingdom?

Grace is enough.

Yeshua is our Great High Priest. Our Great High Priest entered into the Temple in Heaven, and placed His blood on the altar in order to pay for all our sins. Yeshua sat down at the right hand of the Father where He now intercedes for each of us.

Yeshua sent His Spirit to live in the bodies of those who put their faith in Him. When we believe in our heart that Yeshua died for our sins on the execution stake, and, three days later, rose from the dead, and we confess Him as Lord, He saves us.

At that moment, Yeshua’s Spirit enters our body and becomes one with our spirit. Everything Yeshua is, we are. Everything Yeshua has, we have. It is finished! Yeshua makes us whole and complete. In Christ, we are righteous and holy.

In Him, we, (our spirits) are perfect, righteous, holy, whole and complete, but we (our spirits) live in broken bodies in a broken world with broken people. We strive to walk in the Spirit and manifest perfection, but, all too often, we end up walking in the flesh and manifesting our brokenness and adding to the brokenness of the world. This is painful because we know who we really are…we are sons and daughters of Yahweh, who sometimes act like Satan’s children.

Grace is enough.

Grace is the forgiveness and mercy that we do not deserve. Grace channels Yahweh’s goodness and blessings to broken humans, who live in a broken world. Grace inspires us to strive to manifest perfection, but covers us when we end up manifesting our brokenness and adding to the brokenness of the world. Grace matures us and develops our character as we struggle with the thorns in our flesh.

Are you struggling today? Is there a painful thorn in your flesh that you have asked the Lord to remove many times, and He hasn’t? Welcome to the club. When you were born from above, you were born into the Character Development Club. Character is not imparted by the laying on of hands, character is developed, as we wrestle with Yeshua, and plead with Him to bless us by removing the painful thorns from our flesh, while applying the salve of His grace to ease the pain.

Grace is enough.

Yahweh wants you to mature spiritually so that you can fulfill your role in His eternal Kingdom. Consequently, Yahweh is more concerned with your character, than He is your comfort. Comfort (the lack of worldly struggle and pain) is temporary, but the character that is forged, as your perfect spirit rightly interacts with the struggle and pain, which is caused by him living in a broken body, on a broken planet, with broken people, is eternal.

Make no mistake. Character development is a painful, time-consuming business. It is painful to be a perfect creature, who lives in a broken body, in a broken world with broken people. It is painful to grow up spiritually.

Grace is enough.