Grace Revolution: Experience the Power to Live Above Defeat (12 page)

A
life that is founded upon the gospel of Jesus Christ is unshakable. When you build your life upon the gospel, you are building on a strong foundation that will give you stability and the power of God for lasting breakthroughs (see Rom. 1:16).

You may be going through an extremely difficult season right now. Perhaps you have just received a negative medical report, or maybe you are surrounded by some challenging circumstances at your place of employment. I want to encourage you to say this by faith: “I am too blessed to be stressed.” Now invite our Lord Jesus into your situation. Involve Him in your area of need. Whether it is a healing, provision, or relationship breakthrough that you need, see and believe that the Lord is with you.

My dear friend, don’t put your trust in your own understanding. Instead lean wholly on the one Who is more interested in your
success than you are. The book of Proverbs tells us, “The name of the L
ORD
is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe” (Prov. 18:10). Run to Him and cast all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you. I speak this promise of God into your situation right now: “‘No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the L
ORD
, and their righteousness is from Me,’ says the L
ORD
” (Isa. 54:17). Amen and Amen! Meditate on the last line of this powerful Scripture. In the new covenant of grace, your righteousness is from the Lord Jesus Himself. Now, the more you understand your righteousness in Christ, the more you will experience His promise in Isaiah 54:17.

The opposite holds true. When God’s people are not established in their righteous identity in Christ, they become susceptible to the weapons of the enemy. Weapons like sickness, lack, guilt, condemnation, fear, depression, and all kinds of disorders and addictions. That is why it is so important to be sure that you are listening to the real gospel. God’s Word proclaims that none of these weapons, even if they have already been formed, shall prevail against you. And every unfounded accusation, every malicious lie, and every false allegation you shall condemn! The enemy doesn’t have a hold over your life. God does, and He holds it together.

I see a new generation of God’s people emerging as the grace revolution sweeps the globe. As the word of His grace is preached around the world today, I see more and more believers, many of them dynamic church leaders, leaving the old covenant of law and embracing fully the new covenant of grace. They are realizing that only grace, found in the person of Jesus Christ, can lead them into the promised land.

The truth is that Moses, who represents the law, is dead (see Josh. 1:2). And only Joshua (
Yehowshua
in Hebrew), a type of Christ, can bring us into the promised land. We can’t enter it based on the obsolete Mosaic covenant. We can’t inherit it based on our efforts to be justified through keeping perfectly the Ten Commandments. We can inherit it only through faith in the grace of our Lord Jesus. It is not by our works that we inherit God’s promises, but by Christ’s perfect, finished work.

How did the wall of Jericho that stood between God’s people and the promised land come crashing down? Did God’s people have to use their own might to push down the wall? Did they have to fight an army? No, at just the blast of the rams’ horns and a great shout, God caused the wall to crumble. The ram’s horn is a beautiful picture of the death of our Lord Jesus. The ram had to die for the horn to be obtained. The sounding of the ram’s horn is thus a proclamation of our Lord’s death and finished work. At the cross, when Jesus had paid fully for all our sins with His blood, He proclaimed, “It is finished!” (John 19:30).

The walls of Jericho falling at the sounding of the rams’ horns.

It is the shed blood of Jesus that brings us out of captivity and into the promised land. What the ten plagues of Moses could not do, the blood of Jesus did. It was the blood of Christ, typified by the lambs’ blood applied to the lintels and doorposts of the Hebrew homes, that caused Pharaoh, a type of Satan, to finally release God’s people. God threw down His trump card—the blood of His Son! So it was His Son, the true Lamb of God, Who brought them out of Egypt, and it was also His Son Who brought them into the promised land. It is all Christ and Christ alone!

Why couldn’t the miracles of Moses free God’s people? Because they were miracles of judgment. Judgment and condemnation will
not free you. Only the love and grace of our Lord Jesus, Who shed His blood at Calvary for you, can do that. My friend, are you hearing about the judgments of the law today, or are you hearing the ram’s horn being blown? One condemns and brings death, the other liberates and gives life. One causes you to remain in bondage to sin and live a defeated life, the other empowers you to break free and reign in life. Make sure you are hearing the true gospel today!

I am so glad I am seeing a new generation of people who are sounding the ram’s horn. They have moved their pulpits from Mount Sinai to Mount Zion, and are now preaching the unadulterated gospel of grace of our Lord and His finished work. The result? Countless lives are being set free from Satan’s grip and ushered into their promised land! Pastors and leaders, I encourage you to blow the ram’s horn in your preaching and teaching! Proclaim with boldness the finished work of our Lord Jesus. Every Sunday at the pulpit, that is what I endeavor to do. That is what makes bondages and addictions crumble, as the walls of Jericho did, and fall away from people’s lives.

So what is the gospel? How do we know if we are hearing the real gospel? What sets the true gospel apart from every other “gospel”?

To answer this question, let’s go to the book of Jude. Apostle Jude
tells us to “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3). What is “the faith” here that the church is to contend earnestly for? My dear reader, when you hear the word
faith
mentioned in the New Testament, it refers to “justification by faith”—how one is made righteous before God based solely on his faith in Christ Jesus. This is the crux of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is what sets it apart from all the false gospels.

Unfortunately, there are believers today who are departing from this core, defining truth of the gospel. If you hear them teach the Bible, you will find that justification by faith is not their emphasis or priority. They see it as elementary, as basic, as something that believers need to move on from in order to grow in their Christian walk. For them it is just not the crux of the gospel.

What they prefer to preach and teach is doing right or living right. You’ll hear about all sorts of things that you need to do for God in order to live right. You’ll hardly hear anything about how you are justified or made righteous by faith in Christ. Now, I’m not against right living, but that is
not
the gospel. Right living is certainly important, but it comes by believing right. When you believe right, you will live right.

The crux of the gospel is not right living or good works, but justification by faith. And the apostle Jude tells us to contend earnestly for this. We are told not just to contend for this, but to
contend earnestly
. That term is translated from one Greek word,
epagonizomai
,
¹
from which the English word
agony
is derived. In other words,
epagonizomai
literally means “to agonize for.” We are to
agonize
for the
faith! We are to fight for the truth that we are justified by faith and not works. This is the real gospel. This is the good news.

Sadly, what you hear today is hardly good news, because justification by faith has been subtly replaced with justification by works. Yes, they may tell you that you are saved by grace through faith, but then in the same breath, they corrupt the simplicity of the gospel by saying that you stay saved or get blessed through works. If you go to the streets and ask Christians today what justifies them and releases God’s blessings into their lives, most of them will tell you, “Obeying God’s laws and living a good life.” Rarely will you hear, “I’m justified and blessed by faith in Christ.”

But what does the Bible actually say about the gospel we are to preach? The answer is found in Romans 1:17—“For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’” What is supposed to be revealed in this gospel? Not our sins, but the righteousness of God! Have you been hearing fire-and-brimstone preaching that focuses on your sins, or have you been hearing preaching that shows you that you are the righteousness of God through faith in Christ? Only hearing about the grace of God and how you are righteous by faith in Christ will set you free from your struggle with sin, addiction, and bondage.

Romans 1:17 tells us that this righteousness of God that we have in Christ is revealed from “faith to faith” and that the just “shall live by
faith.” Can you see this powerful truth? It’s not this idea that once you are saved by grace through faith, you move on to works and watch your performance to maintain your salvation. Many Christians experience abundant joy when they are saved, only to lose that joy quickly when they are told, “Now that you’re saved, you need to work to please God in order to stay saved.”

These sincere believers try their best to do this, only to feel discouraged and condemned when they fail time and again. Because of hearing a perverted gospel, they are not going from faith to faith, but from faith to works. No, my friend, it’s from faith to faith to faith to faith… all the way until we see Jesus face-to-face!

This doesn’t mean that there is no place for good works or living a holy life. These are by-products of living from faith to faith. They will be evident in your life when you live believing that you are justified, made righteous, and blessed through faith in Christ.

I love how the New Living Translation puts it: “This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith” (Rom. 1:17
NLT
).

So if someone comes to you and tells you that they are preaching the gospel, don’t just swallow everything, hook, line, and sinker. Discern for yourself if what you are hearing about righteousness is accomplished from start to finish by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let me share with you a testimony that demonstrates how hearing the true gospel can make all the difference to your life. It comes from Sally, who lives in New Jersey. She wrote: