TO LIVE THE GLASS OVERFLOWING

We will do better if we live Christ as our life, rather than degrade Him into an ideology or a religion. Grace is not an abstraction. Grace is Jesus Christ.
 
Paul’s ‘Christ your life’ is a bridge too far for some Believers because ‘believing’ for them, involves talk of grace followed by the enumeration of a list of things they think Christians must do -  which contradicts what they just said. This list eliminates grace and makes their Christianity something that God never did (make it). It’s surprising how many can talk of grace and busy themselves earning it.
 
FALSE CHRIST, FALSE GOSPEL, BENT US
 
A brother took offence when the preacher observed that there were people in the meeting who did not know God – despite their avid Christianity. We learn to know God through the person of Christ - the Jesus Lens. But if we view Christ through the law, He is not the Christ of God and neither is this His Gospel. The Christ of legalism is a false christ and the fruit of it is a non-life gospel.
 
THE PRICE
 
There is a sense in which ‘grace can be bought’ – but it is never purchased by us. In a sense our salvation has been bought by Christ but not in way in which he pays off a peeved Father God. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. This is to say that the triune God reached out in Jesus Christ to draw us into companionship with God and undo the estrangement of Adam so that God’s vision for the enjoyment of sons and daughters would be realised.
 
BETTER THAN
 
Think of the most cheerful and fun-person you know. God is like that only infinitely better. Yesterday I read in some misguided book that ‘Jesus never laughed.’ If that were true He was not human and not our Savior. Some people are down on fun because at heart they are anti-life – which is why Jesus was murdered.
 
We cannot ‘buy’ acceptance with God by having faith. The result of the cross is reconciliation with God for all. The invitation of God is for all who would be alive in God’s life to agree with Christ that He has drawn us into His life. To realise life and live in the riches that Paul speaks of it live in the Truth. This is the union with Christ that is already your possession.
 
‘On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you’ John 14.20. This is the day we begin to grow into the fullness of our sonship.
 
AGREEING WITH WHAT YOU’VE GOT
 
Martin Davis observes that, “We must be clear about the place of personal faith in relation to God’s gracious self-giving in Jesus. Contrary to much evangelical teaching, “faith” is not a pre-condition for our reconciliation with the Father.
 
BELIEVING IN WHAT WE HAVE
 
Rather, “faith” is the conscious, joyful acceptance of our reconciliation with God in Jesus Christ. Faith is “the acknowledgement, recognition, and confession of the reality of reconciliation.”
 
To be sure, “faith” is not about making a “decision for Christ” in order to be saved; faith is the grateful recognition that Jesus has already made a “decision” for us. Faith is the humble, open-handed reception of the forgiveness and reconciliation that are already ours in Jesus. In short, faith is our personal “yes” to God’s gracious “Yes,” pronounced to all humanity at the cross.” (1) Just say to Jesus, ‘I’ll have what you are giving me.’
 
MODE OF SLAVES/WORKERS
 
‘But what does Scripture say? "Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman's son.’ Gal 4.30 NIV.
 
NOT ‘BUSY’ ENOUGH
 
Many of us would recognise that this is a better kind of faith than the faith we were brought up with. Others might be annoyed that this looks too easy and makes a nothing of the entitlement that they think they have worked up over a life-time -a mode that they call ‘their faith’.
 
The sad thing about those attempting to earn their inheritance is that they never get it. Not in this life. Sons live in grace. Workers make a religion of buying it. The difference between sons of God and workers is that sons and daughters are alive with a flow of spirit and life. Workers remain involved in straining to validate themselves as sons of God. This is the difference between futility and Kingdom Living.


 
(1) Davis Ph.D., Rev. Martin M.. A Window into the Heart of God (p. 26). AsiAfrica Ministries, Inc.. Kindle Edition.