First the Question: There is no lack of Grace and no lack of spiritual blessings, the lack is on the part of the believer. True or False?
Take a moment to respond at the LLM Question of the Day
And now the answer to the LLM Question of 3-18-2012
Question: There is NO difference between being moral and religious, AND, being righteous and spiritual. True or False?
Answer: FALSE! There IS a GREAT difference between being moral and religious, and being righteous and spiritual. Apart from God’s Grace and Christ’s work on the cross...there is none righteous, not one...and NO child of Adam is alive from the dead. The self righteous, moral, conscientious religious, church going, Christ rejecting, unbeliever, abounding in good works, is just as dead in God’s sight as is the wicked unbeliever who abounds in evil works. Now, out of the 746 responses we received to this question, 90% of you got it right! Therefore, NOW, let us take a look at,
The Grace of God, part 2 of 9
“The Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, the righteousness which is of faith.” “Israel did not attain; because they sought it not by faith.” “They stumbled.” (Romans 9:29-33).
Then Paul added, about 60 A. D., “There is a remnant according to the election of Grace. If it is by Grace, it is no more of works.” (Romans 11:5-6).
THEREFORE NOW, ACCEPTING GOD’S GRACE BY FAITH
The God of all Grace will most gladly bestow His infinite, saving Grace upon any child of Adam who is willing to receive that Grace from God. It is abounding Grace, all sufficient Grace. But it is Grace that no human can earn by good works or religious deeds. The very best news that all of Adam’s race can hear is recorded in Romans 4:1-8. One of these verses reads, “happy is the man to whom the LORD imputeth righteousness without works.”
For about fifteen centuries God kept His religious nation under the LAW, shut up unto The Faith that should afterward be revealed. (Galatians 3:23). At Sinai Israel received a yoke which no Israelite was able to bear. (Acts 15:10). They could not endure that which was spoken when God said, “Thou shalt, and thou shalt not.” (Hebrews 12:20).
We are told in Psalm 14:2-3 that, during the reign of LAW, God looked down from heaven to see if there was on earth a just man who did not sin. (Ecclesiastes 7:20). He found not one. Some years later He looked down from heaven upon His holy, sinless, Son, saying, “this is My Beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 17:5). This Beloved Son truly said, “I do always the things which please My Father.” (John 8:29). “Which one of you convinceth Me of sin?” (John 8:46).
This Son, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, was holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners. (Hebrews 7:26). On the cross of Calvary this sinless Son was made sin, that believing sinners might be made the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Cor. 5:21).
THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN CHRIST
What does an unrighteous sinner have to do to be ‘in Christ’ and receive the righteousness of God? Here’s the answer: Receive Christ and God’s righteousness and eternal life by faith.
Salvation, righteousness, and eternal life are all the gifts of God, “not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 6:23, and Romans 5:17-21). Only the ‘righteousness of God’ will admit a human into heaven. Any and every human may have the ‘righteousness of God’, by Grace through faith in the LORD Jesus Christ and His perfect work of redemption.
Let us prayerfully and seriously consider Romans 4:4-5, and then Romans 3:24-28 and Ephesians 1:6-7,
“Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of Grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth in Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”
“Being justified freely (without a cause) by God’s Grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare God’s righteousness for the remission of sins that are past…that God might be just and the ‘JUSTIFIER’ of him which believeth in Jesus.” And “Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”
“To the praise of the glory of God’s Grace, wherein He hath ‘GRACED’ us in the ‘BELOVED’, in Whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of God’s Grace.”
As we consider and prayerfully analyze these wonderful statements, let us consider with them Romans 5:17,
“For if by one man’s sin death reigned by one, ‘much more’ they which receive ‘abundance of Grace’ and ‘the gift of righteousness’ shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ.”
In these ‘Grace’ and ‘justification’ (‘righteousness’) Scriptures, which we have quoted, the Holy Spirit has presented the most wonderful truth that has ever been proclaimed to condemned, ruined, lost sinners, all of whom are absolutely helpless and hopeless without justification by Grace through the Faith in God’s beloved Son and His perfect redemptive work.
GOD DESIRES, ACCEPTS, SANCTIONS, AND REWARDS THE GOOD WORKS OF JUSTIFIED BELIEVERS
God kept His religious Nation (Israel) shut up under the law for about fifteen centuries to teach them and the rest of the human race that the Law was added that sin might abound (Romans 5:20); that the Law was Israel’s schoolmaster to bring Israel to Christ that they might be justified by the Faith in Christ (Galatians 3:24); that Christ died on the cross to deliver Israel from the curse of the Law. (Galatians 3:13).
It behooves every person, who really desires to please God, to reach the conclusion recorded in Romans 3:28, “therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”
In Romans 4:4 we have learned that no person, however religious or conscientious and sincere, can work his way into God’s Grace or attain unto righteousness by good works.
We are told in Romans 10:10, “with the heart man believeth unto righteousness.”, “It is God that justifieth”, “It is Christ that died, yea that is risen again.” (Romans 8:33-34) We read in Romans 4:6 of the blessedness (happiness) of the man to whom the LORD imputeth righteousness without works.
“To him that worketh not, but believeth in Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” (Romans 4:5). In Romans 5:6-9 we read that Christ died for the ungodly; that the ungodly, who believe, are justified by Christ’s blood.
In Ephesians 1:6-7 we learned that the ungodly, who believe are ‘Graced’ “in Christ, in Whom they have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of God’s Grace”. In Romans 3:24-28 we learned that believers are justified freely by God’s Grace through the Faith in the redemptive work of the LORD Jesus, Who, on the cross, became the propitiation for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2).
The justified believer is “God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:10). “Whom God called, them He also justified And whom He justified them He also glorified.” (Romans 8:30). The justified believer, who is justified by God’s Grace and by the Faith in the shed blood of the LORD Jesus Christ, God’s workmanship, is created in Christ Jesus ‘UNTO GOOD WORKS’. (Ephesians 2:10).
We are told in 1 Corinthian 3:13-14, “the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is, If any man’s work abide, which he hath built thereupon (Christ the foundation), he shall receive a reward.” But keep in mind Galatians 2:21: “if righteousness come by the law, Christ has died in vain.”
We are told in Titus 2:11, “the Grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.” By the Grace of God the LORD Jesus tasted death for every man. (Hebrews 2:9). When the LORD Jesus, on the cross, gave Himself a ransom for all (1 Timothy 2:4-6), He was made sin that believing sinners might be made the righteousness of God in Christ. (2 Cor. 5:21). Think about this…“The righteousness of God in Christ.”
The believer’s faith is counted for righteousness. The righteousness of God is imputed to the believing sinner who meets God at Calvary and by the Faith receives Christ as his Savior and his righteousness. Christ is the believer’s righteousness. (1 Corinthians 1:30). The sinner, who does not receive the righteousness of God before he leaves this world, will not be rewarded for his good deeds, but will be eternally lost because of his evil deeds and his unbelief. (Ezekiel 33:13, Revelation 20:13-15, John 3:36, John 3:16-19, Romans 2:3-11). Then read Revelation 21:8.
AND NOW, JUSTIFIED BELIEVERS ARE ALIVE FROM THE DEAD
In Romans 5, the alienated, unrighteous, dead children of Adam, are told that they can be reconciled and justified by God’s Grace, and receive life, “they which receive abundance of Grace and the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by Jesus Christ.”
Justified, reconciled believers are instructed, in Romans 6:13, “yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”
“Sin hath reigned unto death.”, “Even so Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our LORD.” (Romans 5:21).
God does not approve or reward the good works of any person who is not alive from the dead.
The self‑righteous, moral, conscientious religious, church going, Christ‑rejecting, unbeliever, abounding in good works, is just as dead in God’s sight as is the wicked unbeliever who abounds in evil works.
There is a great difference between being moral and religious, and being righteous and spiritual. Apart from God’s Grace and Christ’s work on the cross, “there is none righteous; not one” and no child of Adam is alive from the dead.
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In Ephesians 1:13 the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul declares that men are saved and sealed by hearing and BELIEVING the Word of Truth, the Gospel of your Salvation. Therefore, here, now, is declared unto you the Word of Truth, the Gospel of your Salvation: "that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures" 1 Corinthians 15:3-4. BELIEVE today. The time is short.
So There You Have it!
Spread this message to everyone you know, far and wide.
Grace be to you and peace, from God: our Father, and The LORD Jesus Christ.
In The LORD Jesus Christ,
The Lion and Lamb Ministry
Pastor David Picos, D.D.
Minister and Ambassador for Christ in the Ministry of Reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18-20)
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