The preaching of the Gospel always opens it's self up to this charge.
"IF you preach the grace of God it will lead to wild living and people just running around sinning"
Grace produces sin…
Grace does not produce sin. It produces testimony. The gospel is the gospel of grace. Grace is the single word that defines the new covenant, and the gospel.
In the KJV of the bible. Faith occurs 229 times in NT. Love 157 times, and grace 122 times.
God will punish you occurs 0 times. Gods angry with you 0 times.
Grace restores intimacy with God. It reopens the channels between us and God. Through these channels flow life and power. The Christian life is about love and faith, in the climate of grace.
The heart of the concern is good. No-one wants or is comfortable with harmful destructive patterns in our lives. (You know like pride or self reliance hee hee). Having no desire to see the power and love of God transform us would just be weird, the absence of change in the life of a believer would be bizarre, and would highlight a concern. Grace accelerates change.
God's climate for change is grace. Under law it was fear. Fear works to a degree but, any relationship based on fear, is floored fundamentally. Our relationship with God is based on love and faith, not on fear and rewards.
Grace produces testimony. Once you see who you are in Christ, and see every disqualifying voice against you cancelled at the cross, your liberated to fly to new heights.
Col 1v5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, 6which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing - as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth
Every where the Gospel goes and is preached in truth it bears fruit, and grows. Everything about the gospel is life, its growth, its fruit.
Secular physiologists, philosophers all agree the most powerful environment for change in a persons life is love. People who come from loving homes are generally more stable, whole, peaceful and happy. People who come from homes where there is fear are harsh, destructive, and wild.
Here are some testimonies from last weekend.
Irene's Testimony...
On Friday night we prayed for Irene, who works for Jeff and Lynn. Irene has cancer. She suffers from constant pain in the stomach area, and battles to sleep as a result. Irene also battles to keep food down, and would vomit after drinking tea or coffee. She also battled to urinate as it was extremely painful, this has previously resulted in Irene being admitted to the hospital. We laid our hands on Irene and rebuked the sickness. Immediately I felt heat and anointing go out my hands and into Irene's body. I asked Jeff to ask Irene if she felt anything happen. Jeff translated our English into Xhosa. Irene said she felt heat come into her body, and said the pain had left. We prayed for her again, releasing more anointing power. Irene was crying, and we knew something significant had happened.
The next day as Irene arrived at work she gave us the good news. The said that as she was sleeping "pastor" appeared to her in a dream, she said "pastor" told her not to worry but to go to sleep and when she wakes up in the morning she will be healed. Irene also said that "pastor" put a white robe on her.
Irene said that when she woke up she felt well. She went to the toilet and for the first time in ages was able to have a wee without it being painful. She then drank two cups of coffee and did not throw up. All the pain was also gone, and she had slept through the night.
On the taxi her friends remarked that she looked much better, Irene told them that she had been healed. Irene insisted on coming to testify at the church on Sunday morning, which she did do (after eating two big bowls of porridge, and not vomiting).
I then had the awesome privilege of telling her that the robe was the robe of righteousness, the symbol of the gift of righteousness to those who believe. She loved learning that she is holy blameless and perfect in His sight!
Jill's testimony
I was at home and the presence of God came on me. I felt power and energy building up on the inside of me. Eventually I had to go preach the gospel. I went to the local taxi rank where i preached the glorious gospel of grace. While I preached one guy took out his knife, which had been used on several crimes and threw it down on the floor. Another person took out a packet of drugs, pills, from his pocket and threw them down on the floor.
I prayed for them and it was amazing...I cant believe God used me like that, I don't even have it all together.
Tom's testimony...
(Name has been changed)
I saw Tom at the back of the church crying and being ministered to very deeply by a prayer team and the Holy Spirit. Afterwards I spoke to Tom, keen to know what Father had done for/to him. Tom said
" I have never been touched before, but today I encountered God for the first time"..
Tom was released from jail a week or so before, and is a recovering drug addict.
Praise God.
Tyde's Encounter
When I got back from the Port Alfred trip on the 7th September 2009, Tyde told me of his angelic encounter.
"Dad I had a vision, but it was not a vision because I really saw it. I saw an angel standing in the blue light, and I was lying on the bed feeling like it was preaching to me. And I was feeling happy when I saw the angel standing in the blue light. The angel said "no matter what bad things you do, Jesus will always love and forgive you". His whole body was blue, but he had wings and they were blue and white."
Tyde Duncan 6.
Grace produces testimony. When wee see the unconditional love and acceptance of God, we become intimate. Intimacy releases power and encounter.
Almost without fail what restricts encounter with God is guilt, unworthiness and a sense of not deserving. Grace peels back the layers of disqualification.
Grace is a ministry of qualification. Grace says "you can".
You can live the way you want!
You can heal and perform signs and wonders.
You can share the gospel!
You can encounter God.
You can be used by God.
Grace produces testimony.
After much pondering I have finally worked out how to balance grace.
If we just preach grace, grace, grace there is the possibility that people will just run out and sin…
So the balance is the Holy Spirit. We must receive and release the Holy Spirit. He is the power of God in our lives. He leads and guides. He teaches councils and empowers. He is called the spirit of grace. How can the increase of the presence or God and His ministry in our lives lead to an increase in harmful behavior. It cannot.
Many people do not realize that what God is doing through establishing churches in the gospel, it that it is not just a theology. Not just a text book philosophy. It's an experience. It's an invitation into the realm of the power of God in believers. The law is just a text. Grace is a person. The law was given and written on stone. Grace came. Jesus is grace, grace is an experience.
Paul said "I'm not ashamed of the gospel it's the power of God unto salvation". The gospel releases the power of God into our lives. Acts 1:8 says and you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.
So grace, or the truth of the gospel does not increase sin, it releases the power of God to destroy patterns of sin, and to be accelerated into greater realms. Realms of victory and of signs wonders and miracles. Grace qualifies every person for the life of the miraculous! You can do miracles.
We were separated alienated from God. We were hostile in mind. We did evil deeds.
But in Christ's body we were reconciled to God. Do not underestimate the power of that reconciliation. When this happens we are made a new creation! We die to our selves, and become a new person. That new person is holy, and blameless and above reproach in His sight. Above reproach means free from accusation.
Now continue in that faith. Continually believe your holy, blameless and free from accusation in His sight. Not seeing this will lead to doing evil and becoming hostile in mind.
Stay in the faith, continue in the faith. Faith in what? In Jesus and the work of the cross. You are forgiven, you are healed, you are prosperous. Because of Jesus! Continue in the faith. Hold to that hope.
Our only hope is in the Gospel. We cannot trust ourselves for goodness. We cannot make our selves holy and blameless and free from accusation in His sight. Only He can, through the sacrifice of Jesus. The father accepts us as holy, for we are Jesus' and he presents us to the father. We are in Christ.
Romans 1v15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. 16For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith,(Or beginning and ending in faith) as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith."]
The Gospel reveals a right standing with God by faith. This is grace. It's by faith, we believe in our savior. Now the power of God is working and released in our lives. It's that power that releases testimony in our lives.
Grace produces testimony!
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