God Forgives and Is Still Just

 

Nathan the prophet comes to David after his adultery and murder and says, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die.” (2 Samuel 12:13–14)

This is outrageous. Uriah is dead. Bathsheba is raped. The baby will die. And Nathan says, “The Lord has put away your sin.”

Just like that? David committed adultery. He ordered murder. He lied. He “despised the word of the Lord” (2 Samuel 12:9). He scorned God. And the Lord simply “put away [his] sin”?!

What kind of a righteous Judge is God? You don’t just pass over rape and murder and lying. Righteous judges don’t do that.

This was one of Paul’s greatest theological problems — very different from the ones people struggle with today: how can God forgive sin and still be righteous? Here is what Paul said in Romans 3:25–26:

God put [Christ] forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

In other words, the outrage that we feel when God seems to simply pass over David’s sin would be good outrage if God were simply sweeping David’s sin under the rug. He is not.

God sees, from the time of David, down the centuries to the death of his Son, Jesus Christ, who would die in David’s place, so that David’s faith in God’s mercy and God’s future redeeming work unites David with Christ. And in God’s all-knowing mind, David’s sins are counted as Christ’s sins and Christ’s righteousness is counted as his righteousness, and God justly passes over David’s sin for Christ’s sake.

The death of the Son of God is outrageous enough, and the glory of God that it upholds is great enough, that God is vindicated in passing over David’s adultery and murder and lying. And ours.

And so God maintains his perfect righteousness and justice while at the same time showing mercy to those who have faith in Jesus, no matter how many or how monstrous their sins. This is unspeakably good news.

SATURDAY MID NIGHT BLESSINGS BY APOSTLE JOSHUA SELMAN

 

GRACE IS NOT LICENSE TO SIN!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

SATURDAY AUGUST 13, 2022.

SUBJECT:  GRACE IS NOT LICENSE TO SIN!

Memory verse:  "Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more,” (Romans 5 vs 20.) 

READ:  Romans 6 vs 15 - 16:

6:15: What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? Certainly not! 

6:16: Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?

INTIMATION:

When we talk about grace, we must be careful not to think of it as a blanket that covers us and gives us a license to sin. When the apostle Paul started teaching the people of His day about the law and grace and how the law produces sin, but where sin abounds, grace abounds even more, the early believers got a bit confused. They reasoned, "Well, then, if the more we sin, the more grace abounds, and God takes such delight in giving us His grace, then we ought to sin as much as we can so we can get more grace!"

Then the apostle Paul had to write to straighten them out, saying, "Certainly not!" (God forbid!) Don't you know that when you sin you become a servant to sin? How can you go on living in sin when you have been declared dead to sin?" That we are no longer under the law but under grace, has not given us freedom to sin and disregard the Ten Commandments. 

Like the believers in the apostle Paul's days, our problem is not just a misunderstanding of sin and its power, it is also a misunderstanding of grace. When the Holy Spirit shows us what to do to keep from sinning and walk in holiness, we immediately try to do it our own without His help. We struggle and strive and strain, eventually ending up miserable and frustrated and confused because we don't understand why we keep failing.

The ultimate goal to be accomplished in us by grace is to empower us to live a holy life. But while we are not to worry about holiness, we are also not to have a light attitude toward sin. Grace is not a license to sin. As I said before, believers we are not to be anxious about holiness or the process of sanctification ('be anxious for nothing' (Philippians 4 vs 6)), but we are to be serious about it. We are to recognize that it is God's Will for us. We are to desire and thirst for it with all our hearts, and sincerely ask God for it in our fellowship with Him. We are to make every effort to cooperate with the Holy Spirit Who is working to bring it to pass in us day by day.

Yet again, grace is not an excuse to stay the way we are, claiming that we don't have to do anything about ourselves and our lives because we are not under the law but under grace. That is a mistake the early believers were making. And that is why Paul had to rebuke them and correct their thinking.

It is obvious that God's grace will keep us from condemnation even though we sin. Yes, God's grace does keep our names written in the Lamb's Book of Life even though we aren't perfect. God's grace does save us, declare us righteous in His sight, assure us His blessings and a home in Heaven, carry us through this life and give us peace of mind and heart and many, many other wonderful things. But God's grace does more than all of that, it also teaches us to live as God intends for us to live—to be holy.

I am convinced that most Christians are not looking for an excuse to sin, but for the power to live holy lives. They are very eager to receive the power to meet their needs and solve their problems, as well as live for God. They want to receive the power needed to overcome temptations. If they can be shown how to do that, then they will cooperate wholeheartedly.

And without the knowledge of God's grace by believers, they will never be able to receive the power they need to rise above their sins and overcome their problems. And when they lack requisite knowledge, they will be destroyed. (Hosea 4 vs 6). God's grace is given to us to do more than give us the power to live, it is also given to us to lift us out of sin.

Prayer: Abba Father, great is Your faithfulness. Your grace is sufficient for me: for Your strength is made perfect in my weakness. Most gracious Father, I pray that the power of Christ may rest upon me in all intents and purposes to live for You, in Jesus’ Name, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

Three Examples of How Faith Fulfills Good Resolves

 

To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power. (2 Thessalonians 1:11)

When Paul says that God fulfills our good resolves by his power through faith (he calls our acts “works of faith”), he means that we defeat sin and we do righteousness by faith, that is, by being satisfied with all that God promises to be for us in Christ in the next five minutes, five months, five decades, and into eternity.

Here are three examples of how this might look in your life:

If you set your heart to give sacrificially and generously, the power of God to fulfill this resolve will come to you as you trust his future grace in the promise, “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). And the promise, “Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (2 Corinthians 9:6). And the promise, “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).

If you set your heart to renounce pornography, the power of God to fulfill this resolve will come to you as you trust his future grace in the promise, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). “It is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell” (Matthew 5:29). Much better. Wonderfully better. All-satisfyingly better.

And if you set your heart to speak out for Christ when the opportunity comes, the power of God to fulfill this resolve will come to you as you trust his future grace in the promise, “Do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour” (Matthew 10:19).

May God increase our daily faith in the precious promises of God — promises of his inexhaustible, blood-bought, Christ-exalting future grace.

My Soul Thirsts for God

 As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? (Psalm 42:1–2)

What makes this so beautiful and so crucial for us is that he is not thirsting mainly for relief from his threatening circumstances. He is not thirsting mainly for escape from his enemies or for their destruction.

It’s not wrong to want relief, and to pray for it. It is sometimes right to pray for the defeat of enemies. But more important than any of that is God himself.

When we think and feel with God in the Psalms, this is the main result: We come to love God, and we want to see God and be with God and be satisfied in admiring and exulting in God.

A likely translation of the end of verse 2 is, “When will I come and see the face of God?” The final answer to that question was given in John 14:9 and 2 Corinthians 4:4. Jesus said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” And Paul said that when we are converted to Christ we see “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

When we see the face of Christ, we see the face of God. And we see the glory of the face of Christ, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:4 and 6, when we hear the story of the gospel of his death and resurrection. He calls it “the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” Or (verse 6): “the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

May the Lord increase your hunger and your thirst to see the face of God. And may he grant your desire, even today, through the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

TRUST IN GOD AND HIS GRACE!

 

EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

FRIDAY AUGUST 12, 2022.

SUBJECT: TRUST  IN GOD AND HIS GRACE!

Memory verse: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3 vs 5.)

READ: First Samuel 2 vs 9; Jeremiah 17 vs 7 - 8: 

First Samuel 2:9: He will guard the feet of His saints, but the wicked shall be silent in darkness. “For by strength no man shall prevail.

Jeremiah 17:7: Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord.

17:8: For He shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.

INTIMATION:

“Trust” is described as; worthiness of being relied on; a resting on the integrity, friendship, etc of another; faith; hope; confidence in the truth of anything. Here we are talking of trust in God and His power available to us through the Holy Spirit. We should not trust in ourselves but in God (Second Corinthians 1 vs 9). The Bible speaks of "Trust in God" more than 45 times, therefore, there is no gainsaying the fact that trust in God is key. 

As believers, we should make efforts in achieving our desires objectives through the grace of God at work in us. In other words, we don't attempt anything without asking for God's help. We lean on Him the whole way through each project. We maintain an attitude that says, "Apart from Him I can do nothing." (John 15 vs 5)

God has determined man’s destiny, and no man could change it. Therefore, it’s reasonable and the right thing to do to rely and trust in Him who has designed your destiny. For instance, in Psalm 18 vs 2, King David spoke to the Lord in the words of his song indicating his absolute trust and confidence in the Lord, "The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my strength, in whom I will trust, my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower." 

We are not to be involved in natural, carnal efforts because the result is only fatigue and frustration, disappointment and destruction. But completely lean on the grace of God to accomplish all our lives challenges. We can never prevail appropriately by our own strength. As a believer, learn to rely and trust completely in the grace of God—the power of God available to us through Holy Spirit to meet our needs.

Jesus said, “I am the vine and you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing” (John 15 vs 5). Many people try to be good, honest people who do what is right. Even when they can record some progress, at some points they are overwhelmed by the pressures of life’s circumstances, and will fail, disappointing themselves. 

But Jesus said the only way to live a truly good life is to stay close to Him, like a branch attached to the vine, to draw on the power of God (the grace of God) to prevail over all life’s circumstances appropriately. There is grace for everything; grace for every tasks and circumstances that requires our attention or action. Therefore, seek the grace of God in all things that you do. 

The apostle Paul, in reminding us of this need, will always start or end his letters to the saints with such benedictions as; “Grace to you and peace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” or “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you” or “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” 

God is a purposeful God, and created all things, including you and I, according to His predetermined purposes. To achieve that purpose for which we are created, we must seek His guidance. We are frustrated, and doomed to failure when we rely on our human efforts to achieve the purpose predetermined by God. Therefore, we need the power of God (the grace of God) to achieve our purposes in life. And only in relying on Him, are we sure of accomplishing our purposes in life.

Prayer: Abba Father, by my strength I can do nothing, but by Your strength I can do all things. May Your grace to accomplish all tasks be available to me all the times, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

The Different Tenses of Grace

 

We always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Thessalonians 1:11–12)

Grace is not only God’s disposition to do good for us when we don’t deserve it — we call this “undeserved favor”; God’s grace is also a power from God that acts in our lives and makes good things happen in us and for us — which we also don’t deserve.

Paul said that we fulfill our resolves for good “by his power” (verse 11). And then he adds at the end of verse 12, “according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” The power that actually works in our lives to make Christ-exalting obedience possible is an exertion of the grace of God.

You can see this also in 1 Corinthians 15:10:

By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

So, grace is an active, present, transformative, obedience-enabling power.

Therefore, this grace, which moves in power from God to you at a point in time, is both past and future. It has already done something for you or in you and therefore is past. And it is about to do something in you and for you, and so it is future — both five seconds from now and five million years from now.

God’s grace is ever cascading over the waterfall of the present from the inexhaustible river of grace coming to us from the future into the ever-increasing reservoir of grace in the past. In the next five minutes, you will receive sustaining grace flowing to you from the future — in this you trust; and you will accumulate another five minutes’ worth of grace in the reservoir of the past — for this you give thanks.