Grace
Grace.
It seems like that word can no longer be seen in anything these days, with so much finger-pointing, blaming and hate being thrown around a lot more than ever with everyone so in edge.
Grace.
However, that word has been in my vocabulary this past few months, but more than ever during the past few weeks that many call Passion week that lead up to Jesus’ death on the cross and His victorious resurrection over death, which I have written from my heart about.
It is because, for the last week, I have been meditating and thinking about how Jesus died for our sins and resurrecting for our eternal life and salvation; which is so unfathomable to think about, and to accept that He has done this means that we are no longer condemned by our sins has just given me so much peace in my mind and soul. As the Apostle Paul have written on the eighth chapter in his letter to the Romans, with the first verse being:
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
— Romans 8:1 (KJV)
On my last post, about Jesus’ grace and gift, and His goodness. I also talked about sin being the things of the flesh. These are the things that are selfish desires that leads one to a life of suffering. There are many sins that are found in the Bible, and even Apostle Paul, whose sole mission is to share the Gospel of Grace, have listed all of the sins that entrap so many people who do not know of Jesus’ grace. But regardless of those sins and wrongdoings against God’s holiness, and the times that humanity has gone through, one thing is for sure: no matter what, we are all sinners, and that our selfish, carnal nature has originally subjected us under God’s wrath. But as Jesus himself said in John 3:16–17, God love us so much that He sent His one and only holy son Jesus in order to free us from Satan and the sins that once enslaved us and save us from eternal condemnation and hell.
In fact, Jesus Himself did not distance or looked down on anyone during His first time here on earth; He literally hanged out with the outcasts of society; those despised by those who profess that they are “holy” and “righteous” and are blinded by their self-righteousness. The majority of what Jesus did was literally to heal. He did not go about and condemn people and attack people in their most personal; He simply healed both physical and mental sicknesses. He healed the crippled, deaf, mute and blind, those who are outcasted by society due to leprosy, and those who have even died. He healed those afflicted in the mind and spirit. and as He did all those things, He forgave their sins in the process. He even dined with the prostitutes, tax collectors and even the gentiles — foreigners towards the people in Israel whom they looked down upon.
Due to this, Jesus in fact was considered by the holier-than-thou’s as “a friend of sinners” as a way to insult him:
“When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
— Matthew 9:11–13 (NIV)
Jesus did not see the label given to him as an insult, but a further confirmation of His purpose. He walked His talk, and He let His walking do the talking. He left us words of how to live and how to steer clear of sin, (as seen in His sermon on the mount and the “Beatitudes” in the book of Matthew, chapters 5–7) but ultimately, He wants us to not focus on the sin, but rather to look unto Him. Sin is serious, no doubt about it. But that is even further why Jesus’ gift and grace and His gospel — His good news — is further more even serious. His sacrifice and grace is a lot more serious over sin. That is why believing in Jesus frees one from their suffering of sin.
One beautiful moment that Jesus did can be found in the book of John, wherein Jesus encountered a crowd who was about to condemn to death a woman who was caught in the act of adultery and sexual immorality. The crowd simultaneously tried to catch Jesus by asking Him what He thinks, since their law says that those who sin is condemned to death. Jesus then wrote something on the ground, and then told the crowd:
They kept demanding an answer, so He stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!”
— John 8:7 (NIV)
When the crowd and the religious leaders heard this, they dropped their stones one by one and left, because they have realized, not one of them has not sinned. After they have all left:
Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
“No, Lord,” she said.
And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”
— John 8:10–11 (NIV)
Jesus had — and still has — so much love for the sinner — us, and told them — us — to no longer sin. This is totally different from how the religious fanatics treated sinners. Even today, we see so much condemnation and hate towards others that it has no grace and love in their words and actions. This is why there is so much hate for God these days, because people are pushed away by those who claim that they know God.
We have to treat each other like the beings that we are created by God as: human beings. We need to have empathy; we need to be quick to listen and be slow to anger. We should not live in hypocrisy and act that we are not sinners and condemn, for even Jesus has strong words towards those who live in hypocrisy:
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
— Matthew 7:3–5 (NIV)
Jesus will never ever force Himself into your life. It is up to you to receive Him and to know Him. To accept Jesus into your heart by no means does not give us license to continue to live in sin, but rather that we lose the former desire to do sin. During a conversation with a religious teacher named Nicodemus, Jesus told Him that in order to be saved, one must be “born again”; to be dead to your old self, and to be renewed — reborn — in Jesus’ love and Grace.
To summarize, Jesus — through the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Ephesians— has given us comfort that He has made us alive in Him, wherein:
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
— Ephesians 2:3–10 (NIV)
In order to be freed from the suffering that sin brings, you simply have to repent — meaning to turn away — from your old ways and truly admit that you are not at all holy and righteous but a sinner, and that your righteousness is in Jesus, and to receive the Lord Jesus Christ and His grace in your mind and heart — in your life. I speak of this with confidence, because I myself have gone through so much sin. But because of Jesus’ grace, I have been freed from the darkness that I was formerly in. When I got away from it all, I’ve always prayed this prayer:
Lord Jesus, I do not know everything there is to life, and that I am but an imperfect, sinful person who do not deserve Your love and grace, but I do believe that You have died for me on the cross, and have victoriously defeated death by resurrecting from the grave. I do believe with my heart that You have shed Your blood and had Your body broken for me and that Your grace has now guaranteed me eternal life with You. My human logic can never make sense of it all, but Your love — through the Holy Spirit — has given me faith to know that I am saved, and loved, and that my sins are no more before God, and that I am forever saved and awaiting an eternal life with You. In Jesus’ precious name I pray, Amen.
I leave you with this beautiful animated video that basically captures Jesus’ ever-loving grace:
I pray that the grace and the love of my Lord Jesus Christ be with you, and that you may be blessed.
Feel free to reach out to me at: jemuel.datiles@gmail.com
P.S.
I was lead by the Lord to write about what I just talked about after coming across two videos about the state of today’s world. Jesus is leading me to talk about Him through His grace to those who don’t who Jesus is, but for those who have already been walking with Jesus for quite a while, the messages in the videos should bring conviction to further help save people’s lives from the enemy and his destructive lies of sin.
During His first time here on earth, Jesus spoke of a time in the book of Matthew called “The Last Days”. It talks of unsettling and dark times, wherein the world’s heart would be so selfish and hardened against the grace of Jesus and would put Man over God and will be “lovers of themselves” as seen on 2 Timothy 3:2. and He speaks of an unknown time wherein He will return for His church before a time of great tribulation. The apostle Paul speaks of this in his letter to the church of Thessalonians, and many call it “The Rapture”, wherein Jesus will receive His church with Him in heaven. This is a bit heavy for many who aren’t deep with biblical knowledge, including myself, but with God’s graceful peace, knowing that I am eternally secured with Jesus, I simply believe that I will be going with Jesus when this time comes, but for now, I will live this life that He has blessed me with and share His love to others.
The first one was from Francis Chan, a pastor whom God has been using to shepherd me during my time of searching for Jesus even during before these current times that we are in. The second video was from the late great David Wilkerson, wherein he talked about a dream he had that can be seen as a prophecy regarding what is going on right now in the entire world. His message was from several years ago, which is fully rooted in the book of Joel in the Bible. I am still young in my faith, and I do not listen to conspiracy theories that instil fear and anxieties, but these messages weighed heavy on me, and for a few days I had a bit of heaviness in my heart. But thank the Lord Jesus, He gave me His grace through the Holy Spirit to talk about it with the gracious way that Jesus would have talked about it.
Nonetheless, the videos are below; and I pray that the Holy Spirit of the Lord lead you to where Jesus wants you to be: with Him.
As we go through this global situation together, all that we need to do is to look up to Jesus and call upon Him, for He has us under His protection (Psalm 91) and that He is the “Only Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that No one comes to the Father except through Me. “
— John 14:6 (NIV)
