Definition of Grace by Rob Rufus
- Grace is the divine characteristic that enables, furnishes and equips human beings to live in a supernatural dimension.
- Grace carries the refreshing reality of God’s ongoing acceptance of us – an acceptance not dependent on our failures or successes.
- Grace is God’s desire to bless us – not on the basis of our performance, but on the basis of Jesus’ performance on our behalf.
- Grace rescues us from the syndrome of rejection and insecurity, the tyranny of performanceorientated living and the endless anxiety associated with trying to achieve and earn acceptance by keeping laws and regulations.
- Grace reveals that we are loved, valued and accepted by God as we are. - Grace means that God’s correction and rebuke does not involve a withdrawal of his acceptance but, rather, a proof of his love for us.
- Grace delivers us from self-effort and the heresy of the self-made person. - Grace is not about what we do for God, but what God does for us.
- Grace – true grace – turns disappointment into divine appointment, and failure into a stepping stone to success. - Grace brings the sunshine of heaven into our hearts; it releases us from the oppression of people’s opinions, it nullifies Satan’s accusations and it evaporates guilt and regret.
- Grace sets us free to be what God created us to be – an enthusiastic, joyful, spontaneous, unpredictable, risk-taking and secure people.
Thank God for grace
Grace
carries with it the revelation that you and I are accepted by God –
regardless of our performance. It is the mysterious ability of God to
accept us irrespective of our successes or our failures in life.
People in this world are trained to feel valuable on the basis of what
they do; they live under the tyranny of their performance. Remember when
you were a child and you brought your school report home, and your
brother or sister achieved more that year than you? Many children feel
that acceptance by their parents depends on their performance at school,
and consequently feel that their successful brothers and sisters are
more accepted than they are. (Wise parents accept all their children –
not based on performance, but on their intrinsic value.)
Whenever I
have had to discipline my children, I have impressed upon them that I
love them exactly the same whether they are good or bad. My love for
them is not based on their performance, but on the fact that they are my
children.
We need to understand that we have value in God,
irrespective of how much we are doing for God. Even if we never read the
Bible again, never witness again, never pray again, never go to church
again, God would love us exactly the same as if we were doing everything
perfectly!
by Rob Rufus
So many Christians today measure the success of their
spiritual lives by whether they live up to religious rules. They focus on their
performance. They try to live up to the standard they have set for themselves,
but they can never do enough. No wonder they feel defeated!
Your sense of failure may be the catalyst God wants to use
to bring you to a new understanding of the meaning of the Christian life.
When Christians try to live by rules, the outcome will be
the same as it has always been. They will discover that they just can’t measure
up, regardless of how hard they try. The law is intended to make people
realize, “I just can’t do it. I’ve tried and tried, but I just can’t live a
successful Christian life.”
If that’s how you feel, then you might be closer than you
know to enjoying success. Your sense of failure may be the catalyst God wants
to use to bring you to a new understanding of the meaning of the Christian
life.
For a long time I thought that to experience success in my
Christian life, I had to work harder. But I discovered that the key to enjoying
success is not strenuous work, but spiritual rest. This is a paradox in
Scripture—we must rest while we work
From Grace Walk by
Steve McVey
"The problem is, we often use earth's definitions to define heaven, instead of using heaven's definitions to define earth."
by Paul Manwaring
Where you are limited, God is unlimited - think with "the mind of Christ."
Jesse Duplantis
“You are not called to give good advice,
you are called to give the good news!”
Phil Drysdale
Posts
