The realization that my daily relationship with God is based on the infinite merit of Christ …
I’m reviewing Transforming Grace: Living Confidently in God’s Unfailing Love (by Jerry Bridges) for our “True Woman Discussion Course” tomorrow and I thought some excerpts might bless you too. Enjoy!
“The grace of God is one of the most important subjects in all of Scripture. At the same time it is probably one of the least understood.
All Christians by definition believe in grace. Many of us frequently quote Paul’s well-known words in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” And John Newton’s beloved hymn, “Amazing Grace” is said to be the all-time favorite hymn in the United States. Why then do I say the grace of God is one of the least understood subjects in the Bible?
When we think of grace, we almost always think of being saved by grace. That is why Ephesians 2:8-9 is so familiar to us. Even Christian literature available on the subject of grace seems to deal almost exclusively with salvation. But the Bible teaches we are not only saved by grace, but we also live by grace every day of our lives. It is this important aspect of grace that seems to be so little understood or practiced by Christians.
My observations of Christendom is that most of us tend to base our personal relationship with God on our performance instead of on His grace. If we’ve performed well—whatever “well” is in our opinion—then we expect God to bless us. If we haven’t done so well, our expectations are reduced accordingly. In his sense, we live by works rather than by grace. We are saved by grace, but we are living by the “sweat” of our own performance.
Moreover, we are always challenging ourselves and one another to “try harder.” We seem to believe that success in the Christian life (however we define success) is basically up to us: our commitment, our discipline, and our zeal, with some help from God along the way. We give lip service to the attitude of the apostle Paul, “But by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Corinthians 15:10), but our unspoken motto is, “God helps those who help themselves.”
The realization that my daily relationship with God is based on the infinite merit of Christ instead of on my own performance is a very freeing and joyous experience. But it is not meant to be a one-time experience; the truth needs to be reaffirmed daily. That is what this book is all about.”
“After we become Christians we begin to put away our more obvious sins. We start attending church, put money in the offering plate, and maybe join a small group Bible study. We see some positive change in our lifestyle and we begin to feel pretty good about ourselves.
Then the day comes when we fall on our face spiritually. We lapse back into an old sin, or we fail to do what we should have done. Because we think we are now on our own, paying our own way, we assume we have forfeited all blessings from God for some undetermined period of time. Our expectation of God’s blessing depends on how well we feel when we are living the Christian life. We were saved by grace, but we are living by performance.
If you think I am overstating the case, try this test. Think of a time recently when you really fell on your face spiritually. Then imagine that immediately afterward you encountered a terrific opportunity to share Christ with a non-Christian friend. Could you have done it with complete confidence in God’s help?
We are all legalistic by nature; that is, we innately think so much performance by us earns so much blessing from God.
Not only are we legalistic by nature, our Christian culture reinforces this attitude in us. We are exhorted to attend church regularly, have a daily quiet time, study our Bibles, pray, memorize Scripture, witness to our neighbors, and give to mission—all of which are important Christian activities. Though no one ever comes right out and says so, somehow the vague impression is created in our minds that we’d better do those things or God will not bless us.
Then we turn to the Bible and read that we are to work out our salvation, to pursue holiness, and to be diligent to add to our faith such virtues as goodness, knowledge, self-control, and love. In fact, we find the Bible filled with exhortations to do good works and pursue the disciplines of spiritual growth …
One of the best kept secrets among Christians today is this: Jesus paid it all. I mean all. He not only purchased your forgiveness of sins and your ticket to Heaven, He purchased every blessing and every answer to prayer you will ever receive. Every one of them—no exceptions.
Why is this such a well-kept secret? For one thing we are afraid of this truth. We are afraid to tell even ourselves that we don’t have to work anymore, the work is all done. We are afraid that if we really believe this, we will slack off in our Christian duties. But the deeper core issue is that we don’t really believe we are bankrupt. Having come into God’s Kingdom by grace alone solely on the merit of Another, we’re now trying o pay our own way by our performance. We declared only temporary bankruptcy; we are now trying to live by good works rather than by grace.”
“Grace does not rescue us from the penalty of our sins, furnish us with some new spiritual abilities, and then leave us on our own to grow in spiritual maturity.”
SCRIPTURES TO MEDITATE ON (& MEMORIZE!)
- Romans 11:6
- Philippians 1:6
- Galatians 3:3
- Ephesians 2:4-7
- Titus 3:3-5
- Psalm 103:12
- Colossians 1:21-22
- Romans 4:7-8