#Grace_series_4 Come with Honesty and Faith If we refuse to humble ourselves and receive His grace, then there is no relationship. As we come to the Lord and tell Him how we are falling short in those areas then He will meet us in that need with His grace. God is not demanding that we change ourselves. Instead He asks us to come to Him in honesty and faith, and cast all our cares on Him. (1 Peter 5:5-7) The healthiest people are the people who are aware of where they fall short and instead of being defensive, they are able to say, “Lord be merciful to me, a sinner.” The Pharisees tried hard to be holy, to keep the law, but their motivation was to impress others. Jesus called them “white-washed tombs.” They appeared fine on the outside, but inside they were dead and their hearts were bitter toward Jesus. For example, they went to the extreme to enforce the law “to do no work on the Sabbath.” When Jesus, out of compassion healed someone on the Sabbath they criticized Him for it. Sometimes it’s easier for us to have a relationship with the law than it is to have a relationship with the Lord. And Satan would much rather we focus on the law (God’s commands) than for us to focus on the Lord. Do we want to experience God’s grace? We need to come in truth and humility. James 4:6 says, “God is opposed to the proud but He gives grace to the humble.” Some years ago, a young woman came up to me at the end of a seminar. Her face looked full of darkness and she seemed very weighed down and condemned. As we began to talk, I realized that Christ was in her life, but she had a habit in her life that she was very ashamed of. She had tried and tried to get rid of it, but to no avail. She couldn’t stop it. In spite of all of her vows and effort, she couldn’t stop it. And when this thing happened she felt awful, and she felt condemned. I explained to her that Satan loves for us to sin and he loves to beat us over the head with it and to condemn us. And I asked her if she had ever brought it to the Lord. And she said no. She was so ashamed of it that she had never brought it to the Lord. I said, “The next time this happens, instead of staying isolated, instead of staying condemned, I want you to use your sin to remind you of God’s love.” I told her the next time she was in the process, she should bring it to the light, saying something like this, “Lord I thank you that I belong to You. Lord, I thank you that You love me. Lord, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses me from all sin. Lord, I acknowledge my sin, but I cannot do otherwise unless you enable me. Lord, I put my will; I put myself, on the side of You and Your Word. Will you do in me and through me by Your Spirit what I cannot do for myself?” I prayed with her and together we thanked God for His grace and peace. It was very evident to me that she wanted to turn and repent of this sin and she had. A couple months later I got a note from her because I asked her to write me to let me know how she was. In her letter, she said she had done what I told her to do and she said, “Ney, I am amazed how in these couple of months, everything that was troubling me has dwindled way, way down compared to what it was before.” She had been in the grips of sin but she was outside grace. When she humbled herself before the Lord and before me and she brought her sin into the light of God’s grace, He met her there.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 06:19:52 +0000
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