Posts tagged ‘Grace’

Grace + Faith = Love

eph 2  By Pastor Jeff,

 

These two verses have been used countless times by churches to explain how to obtains ones salvation. But we need to remind ourselves that this book written by Apostle Paul is being written to a people that already have obtained the Born Again experience by repenting of their sins, being baptized in Jesus Name, and having received the Baptism of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues.

I want to give some clarification so that we may see these verses in its proper contents. Grace has defined by many as being the unmerited favor of God, it is given to us no matter what we do, and all we have to do is accept it. When Peter speaking about how the Gentiles received the same experience as them, he said in Acts 15:11, “But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”  

This Grace does not give us freedom to sin, but gives us the power to not enter into sin, James 4:6-7, “But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”  We thank God for grace, but we need to understand that it is not rare nor is it just for Christians. Ephesians 4:7, “But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.”  Titus 2:11,  “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,” 

The next part I want to talk of is “Faith” and this the bible is pretty clear on its explanation for in Hebrews 11:1-3, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”  Faith is what empowers us to accept the grace of Jesus Christ in our lives, for when you read the eleventh chapter of Hebrews you will notice that these men and women of faith did not just believe with no action, but in every instance acted on what God told them. James 2:29, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”

To have faith does not mean we have blind faith in what God says, we have 66 love letters written to us to tell us how sin came into the world, how one cannot redeem one selves but we need to trust in our Lord Jesus Christ and what He told us to do to be saved. By Faith in God’s grace we can accept His love for us and what He did for us on Calvary. We become a “Whosoever” as mentioned in John 3:16.  By this Faith in His wonderful Grace we obtain our salvation by repenting of our sins, being baptized in the precious name of Jesus Christ for the remission of our sins and then we receive His Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues.

That’s Grace + Faith = Love and not works, and when we understand the love Jesus has for us, the grace He has given us, and the faith we can walk in, nothing will ever be to hard for Us!

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We Need Open Arms

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By Pastor Jeff

James 2:1-4, “My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?” Recently I saw a story on Facebook that was very challenging, it was about an old homeless man who was attempting to go to church one day, and as he approached the building was told by the ushers that was not welcome and could not enter into the church because he would cause a distraction. He went to the side of the building where he tried to listen through the closed doors and windows and a young man then came and sat beside him. The young man asked him what he was doing and the old man explained that he was too filthy, clothes too worn to be allowed into this church. He then introduces himself and the young man tells the man his name is Jesus and that he was not allowed into this church either.

This would be a sad story but as I searched the internet I had found that some people have been expelled from churches not because of sin but because of not fitting into what the leaders in their narrow view of what a Christian is and is not. A Georgia Baptist church had banned a sick 92-year-old parishioner after attending for 50 years because she was not able to pay tithes to the church. A 103 year old woman in Elberton had her membership revoked because she did meet the new pastors idea od how a person at his church should be.

I would be the first to admit that God had to work on me for quite a while to get me to the place that I am today and no doubt God will be continuing to work on my misunderstanding of what a Christian should or shouldn’t be. Jesus had to point this out many times to His followers such as the story in Luke 14:15-24 about the wedding supper. The ones that were invited to the supper turned  it down for foolish reasons the master of the feast told the servant to go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. He then was told to go out to compel all he could to come to the supper. The apostle Peter had  to learn a lesson about discrimination in Act 10 where God gave him a vision of a sheet filled with all kind of beast and creeping things and was told to eat. Of course Peter being a Jew would not eat and was told in the vision that what God has made clean is not common. This happened three times then as he awoke the spirit told him that three men would come and he was to go with them. These had been sent by Cornelius and when Cornelius met Peter he, he told Peter that he had a vision in which he was to have Peter come and speak to them. this is peter’s reply in verse 24, “Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:”

It’s imperative that we have open arms to all who God sends our way after all we are all are just a bunch of sinners that have been saved by God’s grace!

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We Belong to JESUS

  by Pastor Mike

Praise the LORD and give HIM all the Glory. We should always thank JESUS for HIS Mercy and HIS Grace. If HE didn’t supply us with it, who knows where we would be. HE was the only one to ever walk on earth who was perfect. Yes, none of us are perfect. JESUS will forgive our sins when we stumble and fall. We need to ask HIM for forgiveness. Always remember that when you fall, don’t stay down but get right back up and stay on the road to heaven.

Have you ever been to a place where you felt judged? How did it make you feel? We should never judge anyone in any way.

We as a church need to show the LOVE of JESUS. We need to show people and tell them about the hope we have in JESUS. Any hope we put in the world is always short-lived. Hope in JESUS is long-lasting and it will put our focus on HIM. The more focused we are on JESUS, the stronger we will become spiritually. We will be able to defeat the enemy because we’ll understand that we are already Victorious. So stay focused on JESUS and build a strong relationship with HIM so when the time comes, you will hear HIM say “Enter in thy good and faithful servant”.

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Revival, Biblical Lessons, Apostolic

Janesville Apostolic Ministries