GRACE OF GOD...........Will give you Consistent Victory over Sin!

Important Facts about Grace and how it works!

• You were made holy the day you received Christ as Lord and saviour
• Self-righteousness will rob you of the benefits of grace
• When you receive Christ as Lord and saviour, the Spirit of God inside of you begins to work out things in your life, so you begin to hate those things you enjoyed before.
• Grace is not a license to sin, but rather orders your steps aright to please God
• Grace will make you decide never to go back to your 'vomit' 
• Sin is low life, grace is a higher life

Introduction:

The grace of God is the power and ability of God working in us to enable us to accomplish divine assignments.  The grace may be seen as personal attributes, talent and skills, but the application of these talents and skills in unique ways and at premium performance is the grace of God released on the person.

The grace is also called the anointing, that we receive from the Lord, so that we can effectively work in whatever He will be calling us to do for Him in life. The grace of God and His power is available in every area of life, an individual needs it.  Some people need it to work miracles, others need it to lead global corporations.  Some people need the anointing to overcome different types of sins, addictions, and temptations, others need the same power to teach the word and to win souls.

In other words, we need the power of God flowing and operating through us if we are going to achieve any real success in whatever assignment we have to do on earth.  Without God’s divine power and ability, we will never make it to the tops of mountains that He is calling us to climb.  It will be difficult for us to achieve the goals, which the Lord has planned for us to achieve.  Without divine empowerment, we will have to struggle and nothing meaningful will be achieved.  This is why believers must continually ask for grace and anointing to excel in their assignment.

Many Christians are trying to reach high goals without the anointing.  Human wisdom and effort can never deliver on the things of God.  Instead of relying on God’s power and leading, they are relying on their own wisdom, knowledge, intelligence, and strength.

What is grace
The subject of the grace of God and how it works in our lives is one of the most important biblical concepts for a Christian to understand in today's world. Grace is so important, that if you can figure out the truth of the gospel called GRACE and understand it, you will experience a close relationship with God and consistent victory over sin.

God's grace is defined as His unmerited favour. Grace means that God showered favour and blessing on those who did not in any way deserve or earn it. They deserved His judgment and wrath. But He showed them with favour.

God’s grace runs counter to the system of this world, and so it takes an average person-years to come to terms with grace, let alone apprehending that God could forgive sins and completely erase them that way grace talks about.

The world works on the merit system. If you do well in school, you get good grades and win awards. If you do well in sports, you make the team and get a lot of applause. If you get into college, the merit system continues to reward excellence. This carries over into the business world after college. Exceptional performance earns promotions and raises. Sloppy performance will get you fired.

In TITUS 2:11-14,  We see what Grace did for us:

God’s grace brings salvation to all people 

When Paul says, “For the grace of God has appeared,” he is referring to the embodiment of grace in the person of Jesus Christ, who was “full of grace and truth” John 1:14. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” 

God rightly could have sent His Son to condemn us and judge us. But instead God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” 

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works. 

Titus 3:3-7, We see who we were before Grace

For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, 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,  whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 

God’s grace first saves and then trains

This does not mean that all people are saved or will be saved. The Bible is uniformly clear that there are two separate, final destinations for all people. Those who by God’s grace believe in Jesus Christ as Savior will go to heaven. Those who do not believe in Christ will pay the penalty of eternal separation from God in hell.

But the good news of God’s grace is that no sinner is beyond the reach of God’s grace. The apostle Paul was a persecutor of the church. He called himself the chief of sinners (1 Tim. 1:13, 15). But he experienced God’s grace through the cross. If the chief of sinners found mercy, so can you!

But, there is a major hindrance that will keep you from experiencing God’s grace in salvation, namely, your propensity to self-righteousness. You don’t need salvation unless you are lost and you know that you’re lost. 

If you think that you’re doing just fine on your own or that you’re going to be able to make it on your own with a little more effort, you won’t cry out for a Savior to deliver you. As Jesus said (Luke 5:32), “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” By “the righteous,” Jesus meant, “the self-righteous.” 

The self-righteous Pharisees did not see their need for a Savior. Those who knew that they were sinners did.

Grace trains us To deny Ungodliness 

When you experience God’s unmerited favour in Jesus Christ, it motivates you to want to please Him in everything that you do. As you read God’s Word, you begin to realize that there is much in your life that displeases the Lord, who gave Himself on the cross to save you from God’s judgment. So, you begin walking on the path that Jesus described as denying yourself daily, taking up your cross, and following Him (Luke 9:23).

This includes saying no to ungodliness. This refers to a person who does not reverence God and thus lives by ignoring God. It obviously refers to the person who is openly immoral or evil, but it also includes the outwardly nice person who simply has no place for God in his life. His everyday life is organized, motivated, and run by self, with no place for God. The person who has tasted God’s grace will say no to such godless living.

Also, you must say no to worldly desires. This refers to desires that are characteristic of this world system that is opposed to God. John describes them as “the lust of the flesh,” “the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life” (1 John 2:16). 

They include selfishness, pride, seeking after status and power, greed, lust, and living for sinful pleasure rather than finding pleasure in God above all else. Grace trains you to say no to these things because God and His grace are far sweeter than anything the world can offer.

Grace Trains us to Live righteously.

It is not enough to say no to ungodliness and worldly desires. You must also say yes to sensible, righteous, godly living. In the present age emphasizes that we do not need to isolate ourselves from this evil world in monasteries or Christian communes. 

Rather, in the midst of this present evil age, we are to live sensible, righteous, godly lives, so that those in the world will be drawn to our Savior. This refers to how you are to control yourself; righteously has reference to your relationships with others; and, godly refers to your relationship toward God.

Grace is relying on Him
Grace us a life of total dependence on the Lord and His leading that makes you to confess that whatever you have come, from the Almighty God.

When you depend on Him, you are cooperating with the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of God will work-out good things from the inside of you.  The Holy Spirit enters the life of a believer and begins to reveal areas of weakness which the person need to correct, areas of filth etc that the person needs to change in his life.  

Will there be temptations still, yes. But the person on the inside has changed. The nature of sin and lust for sin has gone so that you cannot easily succumb to sin easily because of who you are and the Spirit that controls you from the inside.  You are able to decide never to smoke or fornicate any more because of the Spirit of God inside of you. When you make such decisions and stand by it, you will discover your appetite for sin will start to diminish until you feel them no more.

But when you fall into sin, you quickly retrace your steps, repent of your sin and ask for forgiveness which the Lord will graciously grant you. Self-righteousness or suppressing of sin is deception. It is a destroyer of right standing with God.  

HOW TO RECEIVE It

The first step to receiving the grace of God is to surrender all things to Him and depend on Him alone. If you want God’s best to start flowing into your life, which will include receiving His divine grace and power, then you will have to give Him your best – and your best will be to make a full and complete surrender of your body, soul, spirit and your entire life into His hands.

Once you enter into this full surrender with the Lord, He will then start to take immediate control of your life and will then start to lead you every step of the way into your divine destiny.  In the process of guiding you, He will give you His divine power and grace so that you can be very good at whatever He will be calling you to do for Him.  If God calls you to be a doctor, an evangelist, a pastor, an attorney, then God will give you His divine grace and power to be very good at any of those specific jobs and callings.  Nobody should doubt the ability of God to empower man or make him, what He wants that man to be.  If God anointed Paul with His grace and power to become one of the greatest apostles of all time – then God can anoint you with that very same power to become all that He is calling you to become in Him in this life.

“Let us, therefore, come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16).  First, notice that God calls His throne the “throne of grace.” This means that our God is a God full of mercy, help, compassion, and divine favour, and that He can release His divine power and grace into any situation that we will need His help on.  We should properly approach the Lord with our petitions and requests, then He can give us His divine grace and power to handle any problem, no matter how extreme or severe the problem may appear to be. 

Aspects of Divine Grace

There are many aspects of the grace of God that should delight a child of God. Grace manifested to the men of old in different ways according to their assignment and calling.

Grace Manifested in The Son of God
In all the Gospels we see grace manifested in the Person of Jesus, but it is in John that it is written, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth . . . and of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:14-17). God was fully revealed in Jesus, not demanding righteousness which man could never produce, but offering a blessing to all who believed in His well-beloved Son.


His word was full of grace for gracious words proceeded out of the mouth of the Lord.  In John 8, when the scribes and Pharisees bring to the Lord the poor woman taken in sin, the grace of God shines out. The Son of God allows the full sanction of the law but calls for one among the accusers, who was without sin, to be the executor of the sentence of the law. He, the only One without sin, had not come to "judge the world, but to save the world," so said to the woman, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." He had come to write with the finger of humanity on the dust of this world the wondrous message of the grace of God.

And on the cross, where the heart of man in all its wickedness was exposed, the grace of God shines out in all its brilliance, where Jesus says to the poor repentant thief, "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise," and where He cries, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."

How richly is divine grace found in Him of whom the Spirit of God writes by Paul, "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich" (2 Cor. 8:9). Not only did the Son of God empty Himself of the form of God, but He relinquished all that belonged to Him as Son of David and having given up all He possessed, He gave Himself for us.

Grace for the Last Days
Second Timothy contemplates the difficulties that the saints have to meet "in the last days," when "men shall be lovers of their own selves . . . lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." In the midst of all the "perilous times," the man of God is to be "strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. 2:1). This is the divine safeguard to sustain him amidst a worthless profession, where the mere Christian professor is little different morally from the heathen.

FIRE...