Grace & Humility

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The Greatest Treasure

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the greatest of treasure given to the church and the individual Christian. At the center of the Gospel, is grace, the unmerited favor of God to undeserving man.I don’t know how it is possible to speak on grace without speaking about salvation. I can’t see how it is possible to speak of grace without speaking about the strength to believe, serve & obey his commands in the Word of God. How can I speak about any of this unless I address humility? Let me in the short time we have to unfold this for you.

Putting Grace into Context

For the Gospel to be good news, there has to be a terrible news to counteract. The good news that a war has ended has to be given within the context of a terrible war and its consequences that had existed. For grace to be grace, you cannot earn it. For a gift to be a gift, you cannot pay for it. For you to receive the Savior and his umerrited grace toward you, you have to acknowledge your sin, for you to acknowledge your sin, you need to be humble enough to admit you are a sinner and ask the Father for forgiveness. Grace affects a man’s sinfulness and not only forgives the repentant sinner, but brings joy and thankfulness to him. To accept grace one needs to bow the knee in humility and acknowledge who he in the face of God: a sinner who cannot do anything to affect his own salvation.
Grace is an action by God towards sinful man. It is love in action, a kindness granted, a favour done without expectation of return. The unmerrited loving kindness and tender mercy freely given to the sinful, undeserving human race. If you believe on Him who died.
1 John 4:15 NKJV
15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
What happens when you accept this gift of God?
We are: regenerated,
renewed,
indwelt,
strengthened
Titus 3:5 NKJV
5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,
1 Corinthians 3:16 NKJV
16 Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
Philippians 4:13 NKJV
13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
It is through the indwelling of the Spirit through the submission to God, dying unto self that we are given the strength to serve other and proclaim the truth. What we do to others, putting them first, loving them, serving them, helping them is an OUTWORKING of grace within us. That is, it is a fruit of of our salvation - it is a proof of our salvation that Christ is within us working through through obedience to Christ and His example. It is lent strength, strength that is derived from Christ, so that all the glory is His and not ours. Everything we do should be to the glorification of Him who died in our place. We must die to ourselves and to the world. Glory means to reveal - all we do is reveal Christ in us, point to Christ - that we put on Christ so we become so conformed to His image that Christ is glorified and we become lower.
Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 6102 George Mueller’s Secret

To one who asked him the secret of his service, George Mueller said: “There was a day when I died, utterly died;” and, as he spoke, he bent lower and lower until he almost touched the floor—“died to George Muller, his opinions, preferences, tastes, and will—died to the world, its approval or censure—died to the approval or blame even of my brethren and friends—and since then I have studied only to show myself approved unto God.”

By Christ alone and Grace Alone

If man is to be accepted by God, it must be solely God’s grace.
It must not be:
of our own works,
or worldly or
bring glory to anyone else but God.
Anything that we do that is of the flesh, God hates and will not use. God does not want a display of the flesh in anything that has to do with His work. We need to guard against this type of thing.
This is not about humanity, it is His-story, it is the story about Him saving humanity in spite what we have done to show His grace and mercy and desire to have a relationship with us. It is about Jesus Christ who by grace extends His hand, that we might cling to Christ, and Christ alone for our salvation, lest any one should boast that any action on their part, in any part “earnt” him the “right” to eternal live. Christ grants us that right, if we humbly submit to Him. If we say we are saved by Christ and…we have gone too far.
Paul says in Ephesians 2 :8-9,
Ephesians 2:8–9 NKJV
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.

Why humility?

James 4:6 NKJV
6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.”
Grace, the gift of God has to be accepted. It must be accepted in humility. In order to need a savior, one has to recognize there is something to be saved from: their sin, and the resultant eternal punishment. Jesus Christ was fully man and fully God. He was humanity’s representative, the perfect sacrifice, and the only one who could have done it, taking the wrath of God on our behalf. This is grace, love in action.
Acts 4:12 NKJV
12 Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Romans 5:9–11 NKJV
9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11 And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
In His death we die to sin, and in His resurrection, we rise into new life found only in Him.
God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. How can you receive grace if you are too proud to admit you need him to forgive your sins? You have to admit you have done wrong against the Creator. Can you imagine my daughter coming to me with self-righteous pride and asking my forgiveness for hitting her brother? It tells me she wasn’t truly sorry for what she did. You have to come humbly to the foot of the cross, recognize your sin, confess it, and humbly ask for forgiveness and your need for a savior. This is the container of grace, a humble individual that recognizes their sin, and that there is no way anything they could do to save themselves.
God comes to the door of you heart, and no further. He knocks, but you have to answer the door and let him in, and let His grace, love and mercy transform you from the inside out. For is love. This is grace and it is transformative. That the creator of all loved us so much, that He was willing to die on a cross for our sins. This is only way this could have been done.
How do I know this? Before Christ was crucified, he went to the garden of Gethsemane to pray
Matthew 26:39 NKJV
39 He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”
What was contained in that cup? Inside that cup was the wrath of God. He drank it for us. He took the punishment we rightly deserved, that the door may be open for us to have a relationship with Him, to be His children, to be saved from the wrath of God and be in His presence for eternity, if we humbly submit to Him, and let him reign in the throne room of our hearts. We need to humbly take up our crosses daily and follow Him, obey His Word & let Him live and work through us that we might be the salt and light of this world.
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