Exceeding Riches of His Grace

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B

BLC

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#1
Feb 28, 2009
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Eph 2:4-7 'But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus'.

God has saved us by grace to show us in the ages to come the exceeding riches of His grace, but some of us seem to be more interested in talking about aliens or playing some word game than about God's precious grace. You could be saved by grace and go to heaven and have Jesus Christ as your portion because He paid for your sins and you believed, yet for the rest of eternity never be shown the exceeding riches of His grace because you showed no interest while you were on the earth. God has a plan for us to be a partaker of His grace for all eternity, but some of us are going to miss out on it. Some get grace for salvation but never grow in grace (2Pt 3:18) and grace never reigns through righteousness unto eternal life (Rom 5:21).

In (Rev 2:7), to him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life that is in the midst of the garden of paradise. That tree of life is filled with the fruit of the Holy Spirit of grace. The one who overcomes is the one who continues to receive grace in all trials and adversity. He is the one who, instead of going negative and reactionary in the details of life, by faith receives grace and remains faithful in the trial and all things pertaining to righteousness and the things of God. Those that receive grace get more grace (grace multiplied) and you don't have to be perfect to get it, just humble (James 4:6, 1Pt 5:5). The fullness of God is receiving grace for grace (John 1:16). What are some of your thoughts about this post concerning the grace of God? I am going to go through some things about the grace of God that you have never considered.

BTW- The only way that any believer can resist the devil and make him flee is by submitting to God and receiving grace through humility. The devil can not be in the presence of grace that is active in the believer's life. The devil can only get to the believer that is not receiving grace. The wicked one touches us not because of grace. I'll save the rest for later, but God allowed the devil to touch Job physically and all he possessed, to make Job a showcase of grace.
 
MahogonySnail

MahogonySnail

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Jan 8, 2009
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They are all very good points, and I don't know the answer to this, but what does it really mean to "grow in grace", doesn't that indicate some kind of effort or is similar to a doctrine of works? How can God be 50% gracious to one person and 80% gracious to another? Isn't he 100% gracious to all? Just a few thoughts of mine.
 
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Lauren

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#3
#3
MahogonySnail said:
They are all very good points, and I don't know the answer to this, but what does it really mean to "grow in grace", doesn't that indicate some kind of effort or is similar to a doctrine of works? How can God be 50% gracious to one person and 80% gracious to another? Isn't he 100% gracious to all? Just a few thoughts of mine.
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I was wondering the same thing. How does someone attain more grace?
 
1

1still_waters

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#4
#4
To grow in grace..Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Well picture someone giving you a free house to live in. It's just the bare bones basics. It's got a roof, walls, enough to keep you fully sheltered. Picture someone giving you an endless bank account of money and a live in helper to help spruce up the house a bit too. All of it is free and yours, but it is also your duty to take all the free money and help and spruce it up.

I think salvation is kinda like this. We've been given the bare bones basics at salvation to fully cover and shelter us, but at the same time there is alotta sprucin up to do. Luckily we've been given an endless bank account (God's grace) to draw off of and a live in Helper (his Holy Spirit) to help us out. But in the end it's all still free and all credit goes back to God.

That's the closest analogy I can come up with off the top of my head.
 
B

BLC

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#5
Feb 28, 2009
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It's a good analogy. We are built up into a spiritual house because we have tasted that the Lord is gracious (1Pt 2:3,5). We are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ as the chief corner stone (Eph 2:20), as a habitation of God through the Spirit (v/22). When the tower of Babel was built, they used slime for morter and that slime was a type of the energy of the flesh (Gen 11:3). The morter used by the Spirit to build God's habitation is grace (Acts 20:32). Each one of us are lively stones built up together by grace as the temple of God (1Cor 3:16, Eph 2:21). It takes God's grace to fit every member of His body where it pleases Him (1Cor 12:18), and we have to receive and give of that grace that binds and builds us together and helps us to grow up into our head, Jesus Christ (Eph 4:15).

Each room of the house that is built must be furnished with grace and doctrine (God's truth) (2Tim 3:16,17). When these rooms are filled with God's word, the Holy Spirit goes into those rooms when it is necessary, to quicken us and bring to our remembrance what is needed at that moment. We take what the Spirit brings to our remembrance and we apply it in the situation by mixing faith with it (Heb 4:2). If the rooms are empty, the Holy Spirit is grieved because there is no truth to guide us into (John 16:13). This is when we get in trouble with the flesh. What we need to do, if we are going to walk in the Spirit and be led by the Spirit, is to make sure that all the rooms of our soul (our spiritual house) are filled with the word of Christ and doctrine, so that it is dwelling richly within us (Col 3:16)
 
B

BLC

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#6
Feb 28, 2009
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When we heard the word of the gospel, God ministered to our hearts and His word gave us the faith that we needed to believe upon Christ for salvation (Titus 2:11). Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God (Rom 10:17) and that faith gave us access to God's grace to be saved (Eph 2:8,9). To get access to grace that we stand in, and to grow in grace, we need faith that comes from the word of God (Rom 5:2). The more of God's word that we have hid and dwelling in our hearts (Ps 119:11. Col 3:16) the more of God's grace we have access to through the Holy Spirit. God's supply of grace is unlimited, so our access to it and our growth in it, is also unlimited (1Pt 5:10). So many of us do not know how to respond to God in the details of life because we have such a small capacity to receive grace. God's plan is for us to receive grace in all things and not just some things.

The reason we have a small capacity is because we do not have much of God's word hid in our hearts producing faith. With our small capacity we want God to do great things through the Holy Spirit in our lives. God is resting in His love and all He wants is to be able to feed us His word. That word gives us faith so that we can access God's throne of unlimited grace. Noah was able to find grace in the eyes of the Lord (Gen 6:8) and saved (7) others of his family and hide them in the ark of God's presence (Heb 11:7, 1Pt 3:20). Noah was a righteous man, the only one in his time, that knew how to find grace. Today, because of Christ, we can find and access grace freely through the faith of the Son of God, who died and gave His life for us and we do not have to frustrate God's grace by not being able to receive it (Gal 2:20,21).

We grow in grace if we are able to access it, and we are able to access it by going to that throne of grace, through Jesus Christ by faith. Instead of asking God to take away or change our situation, we go to God and access grace and that grace strengthens us and is sufficient for us in the situation (2Cor 12:9). What has happened is that grace has added virtue to our faith (2Pt 1:5) because we have allowed God to try your faith in that situation and that eternal grace we received has become much more precious than gold that perishes (1Pt 1:7).

Read these scriptures: Prov 1:5-9, 3:20-22, 4:1-9
 
L

Lauren

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#7
#7
BLC said:
When we heard the word of the gospel, God ministered to our hearts and His word gave us the faith that we needed to believe upon Christ for salvation (Titus 2:11). Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God (Rom 10:17) and that faith gave us access to God's grace to be saved (Eph 2:8,9). To get access to grace that we stand in, and to grow in grace, we need faith that comes from the word of God (Rom 5:2). The more of God's word that we have hid and dwelling in our hearts (Ps 119:11. Col 3:16) the more of God's grace we have access to through the Holy Spirit. God's supply of grace is unlimited, so our access to it and our growth in it, is also unlimited (1Pt 5:10). So many of us do not know how to respond to God in the details of life because we have such a small capacity to receive grace. God's plan is for us to receive grace in all things and not just some things.

The reason we have a small capacity is because we do not have much of God's word hid in our hearts producing faith. With our small capacity we want God to do great things through the Holy Spirit in our lives. God is resting in His love and all He wants is to be able to feed us His word. That word gives us faith so that we can access God's throne of unlimited grace. Noah was able to find grace in the eyes of the Lord (Gen 6:8) and saved (7) others of his family and hide them in the ark of God's presence (Heb 11:7, 1Pt 3:20). Noah was a righteous man, the only one in his time, that knew how to find grace. Today, because of Christ, we can find and access grace freely through the faith of the Son of God, who died and gave His life for us and we do not have to frustrate God's grace by not being able to receive it (Gal 2:20,21).

We grow in grace if we are able to access it, and we are able to access it by going to that throne of grace, through Jesus Christ by faith. Instead of asking God to take away or change our situation, we go to God and access grace and that grace strengthens us and is sufficient for us in the situation (2Cor 12:9). What has happened is that grace has added virtue to our faith (2Pt 1:5) because we have allowed God to try your faith in that situation and that eternal grace we received has become much more precious than gold that perishes (1Pt 1:7).

Read these scriptures: Prov 1:5-9, 3:20-22, 4:1-9
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Very interesting topic, BLC. I needed to hear some of these things.
 
B

BLC

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#8
Feb 28, 2009
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This may raise some eyebrows, but a believer can not abuse grace nor use grace to sin. But, he can stop receiving it and stop giving it to others and that could lead to sin. The grace of God teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lust and to live soberly, righteously and godly in this present evil world (Titus 2:12). Grace is not given nor does it teach us to live in sin, but is given to keep us from sin and all that is associated with it. However, when we sin or when sin abounds in our life, grace does much more abound (Rom 5:20). We know He does not give us grace to sin but He does give us grace (super abundantly) after we have sinned. Why does He do that? He has to make grace abound toward us so that we will not continue in sin. How does He do that? First, His grace does not condemn us for the sin we are guilty of. Second, His grace convicts us through the Holy Spirit of our sin. Thirdly, He gives us grace to confess the sin, to be cleansed of it and to be turned from it by restoring us completely. If we don't keep receiving grace then we will continue in sin, and that is not using grace to sin, but sin becomes the result of not receiving and continuing in grace. Sin is when we have missed the mark because we did not access the grace that we stand in (Rom 5:2, 1Pt 5:12). If it was important for Jesus to have grace upon Him (Luke 2:40) and the disciples with all the believers in (Acts 4:33) had great grace upon them, we can be sure that having grace is very important for all of us as believers. Now we can read the following;

Rom 6:1,2 'What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

The answer is no, because God forbids it and we are dead to sin. God forbids that we continue in sin that grace may abound because He gives us grace to keep us from sin. A believer can not abuse God's grace to live in sin because God's justice will not let that happen. The believer may think that he can sin and God will be gracious to him and forgive him, and that is true, but what God won't do is let that believer use His grace to sin or continue in sin. If you don't believe that then wait and see what He does to the believer if he continues to sin. That is when God begins to chastise that believer (which can be very grievous) not to punish them but to get them back and rightly related to His grace. When we are receiving the goodness of God's grace we are never encouraged to live in something we are dead to through the cross. If you see your brother sin, you who are spiritual (one that is receiving God's grace) go in meekness and restore your brother through the grace you have received from God and not through condemnation by exposing his sin. Remember (Rom 8:1) that there in no condemnation and that love covers a multitude of sins (James 5:20, 1Pt 4:8, Prov17:9).
 
B

Baruch

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#9
#9
BLC said:
The more of God's word that we have hid and dwelling in our hearts (Ps 119:11. Col 3:16) the more of God's grace we have access to through the Holy Spirit.
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Colossians 3: 14And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. 15And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful. 16Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. 17And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.

Psalm 119: 9Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word. 10With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments. 11Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

John 14:6Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Hebrews 4:12For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. 14Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. 15For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. 16Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

I am not sure why you would refer to this grace as being accessible through the Holy Spirit other than from this verse below...

John 16: 14He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

If so, then to be clearer, the Holy Spirit gives this grace from Jesus Christ. We do not have access to this grace through the Holy Spirit, but we have access to this grace through Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus gives grace to us through the Holy Spirit in us, but Jesus is the access to that grace.

Philippians 1: 6Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: .... 11Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.

I do not know if that is what you had meant, but to agree with you, I was by His grace led to post this clarity.
 
B

BLC

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#10
Feb 28, 2009
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Baruch said:
Colossians 3: 14And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. 15And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful. 16Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. 17And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.

Psalm 119: 9Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word. 10With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments. 11Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

John 14:6Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Hebrews 4:12For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. 14Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. 15For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. 16Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

I am not sure why you would refer to this grace as being accessible through the Holy Spirit other than from this verse below...

John 16: 14He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

If so, then to be clearer, the Holy Spirit gives this grace from Jesus Christ. We do not have access to this grace through the Holy Spirit, but we have access to this grace through Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus gives grace to us through the Holy Spirit in us, but Jesus is the access to that grace.

Philippians 1: 6Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: .... 11Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.

I do not know if that is what you had meant, but to agree with you, I was by His grace led to post this clarity.
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Your clarification is well noted and I agree, thank you. (Zech 12:10, Heb 10:29)
 
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