Two Bookends : Fear of the Lord & Being Kept in His Love.Sample

One may ask how the fear of God and the grace of God co-exist. Remember that Truth found in God’s word is multi-dimensional and sometimes needs to be held in the right tension.

Today there has been an unbalanced approach to the Grace of God. This word has been so misused, misunderstood, and weaponized to rationalize wrong. The Grace of God gives us what we do not deserve after we have understood mercy which is NOT giving us what we deserve.

Grace is God’s enabling and empowering within us to do what is right and not to excuse what is wrong.

The chief danger that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, heaven without hell.” ―William Booth

“When we give people unsanctified mercy, we short-circuit the process of repentance and set people up for judgement!”- Bill Johnson. So do not ever tell a Christ follower “It is ok, you are only human, you could not help yourself”.

Be biblical when you empathize with someone. You can say that we have all made mistakes, we have all sinned and given into temptation in different ways and we need to come back to God in humility and repentance. You can say but for the grace of God, I could have done the same thing, so I am no one to condemn you. You point them to Jesus.

REFLECTIONS

·Can you recall times in your life when you experienced the empowering grace of God?

·Can you recall times when you were tempted to excuse your sin?