Grace Revolution: Experience the Power to Live Above Defeat (23 page)

I started this chapter by sharing what happened in Bethany because I believe the Holy Spirit wants to show us the hearts of the different people there. Bethany was the same town where Jesus had raised Lazarus, who had been dead for four days, back to life. Do you know what happened after Jesus performed this astounding miracle?

John 11:53 records that from that day on, the chief priests and the Pharisees plotted to put Jesus to death. That was the response of the religious leaders of that day—they wanted to kill Jesus—the One Who opened blind eyes, unstopped deaf ears, cleansed those with
leprosy, and raised the dead! Why? And what does this tell you about what was in their hearts?

In order to be a chief priest or a Pharisee, one needed to be a student of the Word of God from a young age, and to know the Torah from front to back. Yet the religious leaders, who were zealous for the law and knew all about the Torah, were the very people who plotted to kill Jesus.

Now lean in and listen closely to what I am about to say. They had
head
knowledge, but they did not have a heart for the person of Jesus. They had all this Bible knowledge, but they did not have the Author of the Bible in their hearts.

I am sure you have seen how in a marriage, husbands and wives can use Bible verses to condemn one another. Now, please don’t do that—please don’t use your Bible knowledge to make people feel lousy about themselves! That is what the Pharisees did.

They would quote from the Old Testament to tear people down instead of saving them. They wanted to stone the woman caught in adultery, quoting from the law of Moses, but Jesus saved her by inviting the one who had no sin to cast the first stone. Beginning with the eldest Pharisee, they dropped their murderous rocks and departed. Whenever you find people using the Bible to condemn and to crush those who have failed and who are in need of a Savior, your spiritual antenna needs to be on high alert.

It is possible for people today to accumulate a lot of head knowledge on
this
theology and
that
theology, and yet not have any heart knowledge that burns with love and passion for our Lord Jesus Christ. It
is possible to enrich your mind or to study about this interpretation and that interpretation of the Scriptures, and still have a heart that is stone-cold when it comes to an intimate and personal relationship with Jesus.

Now, don’t misunderstand me—I am not saying that you should not acquire Bible knowledge. If you have followed my ministry for some time, you know that I love studying and digging out treasures from the Word of God. I am saying that we need to study the Bible not simply to accumulate head knowledge, but to have a revelation of Jesus.

To have a heart of love for Jesus, you must know the Bible. In fact, true scriptural knowledge about Jesus will lead you to have a heart for Jesus. Don’t be like the Pharisees, who had Bible knowledge, but no love for our Lord Jesus. Don’t miss the Author when you are reading His Word.

When you study the Bible, study to
feed
on the person of Jesus. Feed on His beauty, His grace, His majesty, and His immense and sacrificial love for you. We read the Word to feed on Christ.

Oh, how I love the phrase, “to feed on Christ.” He is the bread of life, and the more you feed on Him in the Word, the more you will be strengthened and nourished with His health, life, and wisdom for every area of your life. When you see Jesus in the Word, you will know how to esteem and value Him. Jesus becomes real food for your soul and He gives you strength for your service.

Real holiness comes from beholding Jesus. As you behold our Lord,
you are transformed from the inside out, from glory to glory. When you value Jesus, your heart’s desire is just to glorify Him in everything that you think, say, and do. When you have a heart for Jesus, everything in your life—whether it is your marriage, your parenting, or your career—will fall into place as you receive His finished work!

What John recorded about Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet also reveals a lot about what was on Judas Iscariot’s heart. When Judas said, “Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” the Word of God reveals to us that “This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was put in it” (John 12:5–6). Judas’s heart was for the money, not for the Lord and certainly not for the poor. Judas had plenty of heart for money, but no heart for our Lord Jesus.

My dear friend, God has no problem with you having money; He just doesn’t want money
to have you
. Money is a good servant but a bad master. Use money to love people; do not love money and use people.

The Word of God tells us that “the love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Tim. 6:10
KJV
). Notice that
money
itself is not the root of evil. It is the
love of money
that is highly destructive. Something is very strange if you come alive only when you hear about money and the only thing you study in the Bible is about money.

No, my friend, God wants you to be abundantly supplied so that
you are more than able to provide for your family, to build His church, to help the poor, and to worship the Lord as Mary did. However, let your heart be all about Jesus, and not about accumulating, gathering, and grabbing!

In the account in John 12, another heart that is revealed to us is Mary’s beautiful heart of love and worship for the Lord. She poured out and gave her very best to the Lord.

Whatever you do for Jesus out of love for Him cannot be hidden. People will “smell” it. You will carry the fragrance of Christ all about you, and it’s a fragrance of victory, not defeat! And have you noticed that whatever you give to Jesus is never forgotten? What you hold in your hand may be temporal. But the moment you put it into Jesus’ hands, it becomes eternal.

Look at what Jesus said about Mary when He defended her against Judas’s accusation that she had wasted the very costly spikenard on Jesus. Jesus said, “Let her alone, she has kept this for the day of My burial” (John 12:7). Mary prepared Jesus for His burial, but only for the moment, because He would rise from the dead. But in these words, Jesus enveloped her forever in the sweet incense of His praise of her. Today we are still talking about and honoring what Mary did for our Lord two thousand years ago. Talk about your good works having an effect for generations to come!

In closing, let me share something powerful with you. In the Old Testament, the burnt offering came in three sizes—literally big, medium, and small (see Lev. 1:1–17). The rich would bring an expensive bullock; the middle-income a lamb; and the poor a pair of easy-to-obtain pigeons or turtledoves.

Now, while the offerings differed in size, in terms of value to God, they were all equal and acceptable to Him, because they all reminded Him of the one final and perfect sacrifice of His beloved Son. So whether it was a bullock, lamb, or pair of turtledoves, they were all accepted and killed, and their blood was shed to make atonement for the offerers’ sins.

What’s the significance of all this? The three animal sacrifices are actually typologies of our appreciation of Jesus and His finished work today. For instance, many believers have a lamb-size revelation of Jesus. They know that Jesus is the Lamb of God Who has washed away their past sins with His blood.

Then there are some Christians who have only a pigeon-size revelation of Jesus. They see Him as the Son of God Who came down from heaven to die for man’s sins. And finally there are believers who have a bullock-size revelation of Jesus and His cleansing blood. As the bullock was the most expensive of the three sacrifices, these believers are spiritually rich because they have a large and deep revelation of Jesus, His blood, and how it has cleansed them of all their sins.

In the same way that all the three sacrifices were acceptable to the Lord, we as believers are all accepted in His sight, no matter what our revelation and how we value Jesus. But God wants you to grow from having a pigeon-size revelation of His Son to having a bullock-size appreciation of Him.

Why is this so important? Because everything starts from the inside out. That inward spiritual wealth will translate into outward benefits of peace, stability, joy, provision, and victory. Back then, the wealthier you were, the bigger the size of your offering. Today, the larger your revelation of Jesus, the more spiritually wealthy you are!

My dear reader, when you esteem Jesus, when you worship Him and give unto Him, it brings lasting transformation not only in your life. As we have seen with Mary, it also has an effect for generations and generations to come.

Your time spent in studying the person of Jesus and worshiping Him will come back to you. You will experience a quality of life beyond your wildest imagination when the Lord Jesus is at the center of it all. And that is why the grace revolution is all about having a heart for Jesus!

A
s we close the key that is all about valuing the person of Jesus, I want to let you in on something that our Lord Jesus really values. I believe that the Lord finds it very important that you be a part of a local church. While it is fantastic that you are receiving the gospel of grace through television, teaching resources, online materials, or even from this book, I want to encourage you to also be engaged in a local church in your community. Everything I teach about the gospel of grace functions best in the context of a local church where there is fellowship, accountability, and wise counsel. The local church is not man’s idea, it is God’s idea, and indeed, there is something powerful about gathering together in an assembly of believers as part of the body of Christ.

Have you noticed that when you meet a fellow believer, there is always an affinity toward him or her? You may not really know this person, but in the spirit there is a connection. I am talking about the fellowship of true believers. I am talking about
possessors
of Christianity, not
professors
of Christianity. The New Testament contains many warnings concerning professors of Christianity, people who verbally
profess to be or call themselves Christians, but in actuality have never invited Jesus to be their personal Lord and Savior.

You may know of some people who had attended church for some time, then broke away and started to live a sinful lifestyle with no desire to repent and no interest in listening to the counsel of the church’s leadership. Some of them may even have gone on to embrace another belief system. When such things happen, people often wonder,
How can these people be believers of Jesus Christ? Have these people lost their salvation?
I submit to you that in some extreme cases, these people might not have accepted Christ into their hearts in the first place. It is not a case of believers losing their salvation; the reality is these people may never have been saved in the first place. It is important we recognize that there are people who outwardly profess to be Christians but who have never received the Lord as their Savior and been born again.

Let me show you a verse that has been mistakenly used to refer to believers. The verse I’m talking about is 2 Peter 2:22, which says, “‘A dog returns to his own vomit,’ and, ‘a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.’” This verse is often quoted when a “Christian” is seen to have backslidden, turned away from the Lord, and is in danger of losing his salvation.

Now, I submit to you that this verse does not refer to believers at all. Notice that when the verse says, “A dog returns to his own vomit,” it is talking about a dog, not a sheep (which refers to believers). There is no inward transformation that came from the power of God’s grace. In the
same way it is a sow (not a sheep) wallowing in the mire. Hence 2 Peter 2:22 refers to people who have never had the born-again experience of receiving Jesus as their Lord and Savior. In other words, these people are not true believers; they are
professors
and not
possessors
of Christianity.

When a person is born again, he is made a new creation in Christ Jesus. The old has passed and the new has come. He is no longer a dog or sow, but a new creation in Christ Jesus. A sheep can fall and fail, but it will never want to wallow in vomit and mud. Sin—like vomit and mud—is contrary to the new nature a new creation has in Christ. I believe true believers in Christ are looking for freedom
from
sin. They genuinely hate being entangled and bound in sin that is destructive. That is why when we focus our energies on preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, lives are transformed by the power of His grace. When people discover their true identity in Christ, they will experience the power to reign over every sin. That is why the Bible declares that “sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace” (Rom. 6:14). True grace always produces true holiness. Right believing always leads to right living.

But Pastor Prince, this person has been in church for a long time and was even in a position of leadership.

Well, all I can say is that going to church doesn’t make you a believer, any more than going to a garage makes you a car. That is why we have to be aware that there are people who are professors and not possessors of Christianity.