Grace Revolution: Experience the Power to Live Above Defeat (2 page)
Read Grace Revolution: Experience the Power to Live Above Defeat Online
Authors: Joseph Prince
Tags: #Religion / Christian Life / Personal Growth, #RELIGION / Christian Life / Spiritual Growth, #Religion / Christian Life / Inspirational
Dean continued to share with me:
Within days of this revelation, another turning point happened. I had kept my television turned on to a Christian channel. Your program was on and you started talking about “rest.” When I heard that word
rest
, it got my attention. You were speaking from Hebrews 4 and as you spoke about rest, I got up and went to my Bible on my computer and began to study the passage intently. I quickly found that the word
rest
used in Hebrews 4 was a noun and that upon entering this place of rest, I never ever have to leave. Without doubt, I saw the only way into this place was to simply believe what God was saying about grace.
My problem was, I could not simply believe, or really take God at His word. I believed that I was His child and had forgiveness of sins, but I had also come to believe that I had to carry my own punishment for the repeated failures in my life.
I dove into the Word and in the days and months ahead, my life began to change. I began seeing in the Scriptures the simplicity of the gospel of Christ and the revelation of God’s grace began to transform me from the inside out. I repented by changing my thinking and that began to change what I had been believing. My emotions and behavior began to change
effortlessly. I didn’t have to try to feel right, or act right; I just did, and still do. And while I still have my moments, they are getting fewer and further apart.
I realized that all I had to do was to focus on Jesus’ finished work on the cross and keep my eyes and ears open to His gospel, the good news of grace. I was seeing things I’d never seen before in the Word and understanding what grace means and how this truth sets one free. I began to realize that grace is undeserved favor and there was nothing I could ever do to earn or re-earn this unmerited favor in my life, regardless of my sins or efforts to make things right. I began to realize that I am highly favored and accepted in the beloved family of my Lord.
To sum it all up, I will say this: As a young boy, I believed in Jesus as my Savior. I knew many of the stories in the Bible. I went to church. But I lived life with a slave and orphan mentality for over thirty years because I could not understand or believe the whole truth of God’s grace—this grace, which is the power of God unto salvation, this grace, which is the light that shines into the darkness.
I could accept that I was His child forever and would go to heaven, but because of my repeated failures, I believed that I would never have love, favor, and acceptance in this life. I believed that I had to suffer for my mistakes. Finally, I believed that I had to carry my failures all the way to heaven, resulting in much pain and damage that almost crushed me to death.
As I write this, I have been freed of alcohol and drug abuse for over two years and freed of dependence on medication for well over a year. Most of my life, I hated going to bed because I would toss and turn in torment thinking about all my failures
and weaknesses. I hated waking up because I knew it would start all over again. In the last year, all that has changed. I go to bed without thoughts of my past. I can’t wait to wake up each morning to expect more of His grace. The guilt, shame, bone-crushing weight of condemnation, and ever-looming depression because of fear, failure, and punishment have all disappeared like the darkness in the light of the rising sun.
What a revolutionary story of transformation and breakthrough! Thank you, Dean, for having the courage to share your story. I am truly humbled and honored to have been a part of your journey to recovery by pointing you to the person of Jesus.
My dear reader, I want to encourage you to believe that you too can experience the freedom that Jesus brings. Dean experienced victory over defeat in his life and so can
you
. Whatever is keeping you down, be it frequent bouts of depression, self-doubt, or fear, there is a person Who has the power to turn everything around for your good. His name is Jesus.
In taking this journey to understand the grace of God, it is essential you understand the difference between the old covenant of law and the new covenant of grace. To help you accelerate your understanding of law and grace, I want to share with you one of my favorite Scriptures. I have preached this verse around the world, from Hillsong Conference in Sydney, Australia, to Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas.
For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
—John 1:17
The law was given through a servant. Grace and truth came through the Son. The law talks about what man ought to be. Grace reveals Who God is. In the first miracle of Moses, he turned water into blood, resulting in death. In the first miracle of grace, Jesus turned water into wine, resulting in life and celebration. The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (see 2 Cor. 3:6).
Under the law, God demands righteousness from sinfully bankrupt man. But under grace, God provides righteousness as a gift. Now, which covenant would you like to be under? The answer is obvious!
Under grace, God provides righteousness as a gift.
The truth is, through the cross at Calvary, all who believe in Jesus and acknowledge Him as their Lord and Savior are under the new covenant of grace. Yet today many believers are still living in confusion, and get law and grace all mixed up by holding on to some aspects of the law and some aspects of grace in their Christian walk. Jesus said you cannot put new wine into old wineskins. The new wine will ferment and break the wineskins, and you will lose both (see Matt. 9:17). In the same way, you cannot put the new wine of grace into the old wineskin of the law. One will cancel out the other (see Rom. 11:6).
Under the law, God said, “I will by no means clear the guilty, but
I will visit their sins to the third and fourth generations” (see Exod. 34:7). But under grace, God says, “I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and lawless deeds I will remember no more” (see Heb. 8:12).
There has been a change! Can you see with absolute high-definition clarity that
there has been a radical change
and it is all because of Jesus?
Yet there are many still preaching the law. They are still preaching that if you obey God, God will bless you; if you disobey God, He will curse you.
Now, that sounds right, but it’s a dangerous teaching because it nullifies the finished work of Jesus. The law is man-oriented and says, “
You shall
have no other gods before Me.
You shall
not make for yourself a carved image….
You shall
not take the name of the L
ORD
your God in vain” (Exod. 20:3–4, 7, emphasis mine). Grace is God-oriented and says, “‘
I will
put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and
I will
be their God, and they shall be My people….
I will
be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds
I will
remember no more’” (Heb. 8:10, 12, emphasis mine).
The law is man-centered whereas grace is Jesus-centered. The law focuses on what you must accomplish; grace focuses entirely on what Jesus has accomplished. Under the law, you are disqualified by your disobedience; under grace, you are qualified by Jesus’ obedience. Under the law you are made righteous when you do right; under grace you are made righteous when you believe right. Take a look at the following table, which lists the key differences between law and grace.
Under the law you are made righteous when you do right; under grace you are made righteous when you believe right.
LAW: Given impersonally through Moses, a servant of God
GRACE: Came personally through Jesus, the Son of God
LAW: Reveals what man ought to be
GRACE: Reveals Who God is
LAW: Results in miracles of death
GRACE: Results in miracles of life
LAW: The letter of the law kills
GRACE: The Spirit of grace gives life
LAW: Demands righteousness from sinfully bankrupt man
GRACE: Provides righteousness as a gift to man
LAW: Old, inflexible wineskin
GRACE: New, intoxicating wine
LAW: Sins remembered and punished by God
GRACE: Sins forgiven and remembered no more by God
LAW: Dispenses blessings and curses
GRACE: Dispenses only blessings
LAW: Man-centered—what you must do for God
GRACE: God/Jesus-centered—what God will do for you/what Jesus has done for you
LAW: You are disqualified by your disobedience
GRACE: You are qualified by Jesus’ obedience
LAW: You are justified by your works
GRACE: You are justified by faith
The key differences between law and grace
Beloved, aren’t you glad the Lord Jesus came and died for your sins on the cross so that you can now come under God’s grace and experience the breakthroughs you need?
When Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, He said, “Love your enemies” (see Matt. 5:44). Today we have problems loving our neighbors, let alone our enemies. Jesus also said, “If your right eye offends you, pluck it out, throw it away from you. If your hand offends you, cut it off” (see Matt. 5:29–30). Have you seen anyone who’s fighting for the law do that? Have you seen any church practice that? Come on, that church would look like a huge amputation ward! So what was Jesus doing when He said those things?
Jesus was bringing the law back to its pristine standard, as the Pharisees had brought it down to where it was humanly possible to keep. For example, Jesus said that if you look at a woman to lust, you have already committed adultery with her (see Matt. 5:28). The Pharisees thought that unless you physically commit adultery, you have not sinned. You see, Jesus is an expert at using God’s law to bring man to the end of himself so that he will see his need for the Savior. My friend, He didn’t mean for you to pluck out your eye or cut off your hand. (I hope you are not yelling out, “Pastor Prince, why didn’t you write this book earlier?”)
The Pharisees boasted of their law-keeping; hence Jesus demonstrated to them what it truly takes to be justified by the law. He showed them that it was impossible for man to be justified by the law. For instance, the moment you are angry with a brother in your heart, you have committed murder (see Matt. 5:22)! Now, by a quick show of hands, based on Jesus’ definitive and impeccable interpretation of God’s holy laws, who can stand? No one! Yet many are still preaching the law and wanting people to be under the old covenant of law.
Follow me now, I want you to catch a beautiful picture of God’s
grace. The good news is that Jesus didn’t stop there. He preached the Sermon on the Mount and then He came down. Spiritually speaking, if the King had stayed on the mountain, there would have been no redemption for us.
Are you getting this? If Jesus had stayed high up in heaven and decreed God’s holy standards from there, there would have been no hope and no redemption for us. But all praise and glory to the King Who chose to come down from heaven to this earth! He came down the mountain. He came down into suffering, crying, and dying humanity. At the foot of the mountain we see how He met a man with leprosy, a picture of you and me before we were washed clean by His precious blood. Imagine: an unclean sinner, standing before the King of kings. There was no way the standards of the Sermon on the Mount could have saved him. There was no way the pristine and perfect standards of God’s holy commandments could have saved us. The King knew that and that’s why He came down to where we were.
The King chose to come down from heaven into suffering, crying, and dying humanity.
In those days people with leprosy were considered unclean, and wherever they went they had to shout, “Unclean! Unclean!” (see Lev. 13:45) so people would know to run the other way lest they became defiled by the disease. Needless to say, those with leprosy were not welcomed in public places. Yet here the man was before the King, saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean” (Matt. 8:2). Notice he didn’t doubt that Jesus
could
; he doubted that Jesus
would
.
Without a moment’s hesitation, our Lord Jesus reached out and
touched
the afflicted man, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” And
immediately his leprosy was cleansed (see Matt. 8:3). Now watch this: under the law those with leprosy—the unclean—make the clean unclean. But under grace Jesus makes the unclean clean. Under the law, sin is contagious. Under grace, righteousness and God’s goodness are contagious!
Under the law, sin is contagious. Under grace, righteousness and God’s goodness are contagious!
We need not fear that being under grace will cause licentiousness, because the Word of God clearly states,
For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
—Romans 6:14
Unfortunately, there are people twisting God’s Word today. They preach that when you are under grace, sin will have dominion over you. This cannot be further from the truth! Many have been hoodwinked by this false teaching that makes people fearful of God’s grace. God’s Word is so clear: when you are under grace and not under the law, sin shall NOT have dominion over you. The word “sin” here is a noun. It is the Greek word
hamartia
, meaning “a failing to hit the mark.”
1
So you can say it this way: sicknesses, diseases, eating disorders, addictions, and any form of oppression or bondage (all examples of our missing God’s mark or standard for a glorious life) shall not
have dominion over you. When? When you are not under the law but under grace!
This idea that grace will cause people to sin without restraint is from the pit of hell. You cannot be under grace and not be holy any more than you can be underwater and not be wet! It is being under grace that gives you the power to live a victorious life.
You cannot be under grace and not be holy any more than you can be underwater and not be wet!