Grace Revolution: Experience the Power to Live Above Defeat (6 page)

My dear friend, do you have a revelation of God’s personal love for you today? His love has to be experienced in your heart. Head knowledge—just knowing intellectually that God loves you because He loves everyone—isn’t going to cut it. It is when you really encounter the person of Jesus and His grace, and really know in your heart that He loves
you
, that positive and profound changes begin to happen in your life.

Is there a scriptural basis for saying this? Yes, there is. The Bible tells us clearly, “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of
God and of Jesus our Lord” (2 Pet. 1:2). The word for “knowledge” here is the Greek
epignosis
, which refers to a heart experience of what and Who God is, rather than mere intellectual knowledge of facts about Him. It is a knowledge that is gained through an intimate and personal relationship with God.
¹
In other words, when you hear and hear until you know
in your heart
that the Lord loves you and is for you, you will experience His unmerited favor and supernatural peace in the area of your challenge. That is when you will find His strength, wisdom, and supply multiplied tangibly in your life.

John, the apostle of love, wrote, “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10
KJV
). I pray that as you continue to read the word of His grace in this book and listen to messages of His great grace, you will come to truly know the Lord’s love for you and embrace it heart and soul. His love will make you strong and cause you to do great exploits!

T
he key to living with greater confidence and boldness is knowing, first and foremost, that all your sins are forgiven. Today, as a beloved child of God, know that your heavenly Father is not angry with you. He is not mad at you. All your sins have been judged and punished in the body of Jesus at the cross.

Do you have this assurance that all your sins have been forgiven? There are many believers battling guilt, fear, and condemnation because they are not confident that
all
their sins have been forgiven once and for all. They inadvertently hide from their heavenly Father when they fail, instead of coming boldly to His throne of grace to obtain mercy and find grace to help them when they need it the most (see Heb. 4:16
NLT
). They hide, as Adam and Eve hid in the Garden of Eden, downcast with shame and fear.

If you are hiding from God today, I want to encourage you with this heartwarming testimony that I received from Joni, who lives in Texas:

You are most welcome, Joni, and thank you for taking the time to share your story.

You can see from Joni’s sharing how her life began to turn around when she received the revelation that all her sins, mistakes, and bad decisions are forgiven. For you to live above defeat and experience lasting breakthroughs, it is vital for you to have the assurance of forgiveness.

The moment you invited Jesus into your heart as your Lord and Savior, all your sins were forgiven. Your past sins, your present sins, and your future sins. The Word of God tells us, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7). Once you are born again, you are in Christ. You do not have to try to get forgiveness. You
have
the forgiveness of sins, and this forgiveness of sins that you have is not according to what you have done, but according to the riches of God’s grace—His unmerited, unearned, and undeserved favor!

The Bible tells us that “the wages of sin is death” (see Rom. 6:23). In other words, the punishment for sin is death. It also tells us that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Heb. 9:22
NIV
). Blood is thus necessary for the forgiveness of sins. That is why, under the old covenant of law, sin was covered temporarily through the blood of sacrificial animals.

The good news of the gospel is that our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ, came down from heaven to earth and sacrificed Himself at the cross. His perfect, sinless blood provided forgiveness for all our sins. You and I cannot pay for our own sins, so He did it for us. Now whosoever believes in Him will never die but will receive the gift of eternal life. Hallelujah!

Notice how David describes the blessedness of a man whose sins are forgiven:

Now read it in the New Living Translation:

Oh, what joy and what a blessing it is to receive the forgiveness of sins! Conversely, when believers start to question if they are truly forgiven, it leads to all kinds of insecurities, fears, and destructive bondages. Fear and insecurity cannot exist in a healthy relationship with God. In a marriage relationship, if a wife never feels secure in her husband’s love for her, she will never draw strength from or find joy in her marriage. Instead of thriving, that marriage will disintegrate over time. Similarly, our heavenly Father does not want us to live trapped in perpetual insecurity because we are never sure of our forgiveness.

The apostle Paul tells believers who have been born again in Christ that God the Father “has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:13–14). Notice that there has been a
change of location
. You used to be under the power of darkness. But the moment you believed in Jesus, you were moved and placed under the blood of Jesus, where there is perpetual forgiveness of sins.

To understand the total forgiveness of sins, we have to understand the value of the person Who sacrificed Himself on the cross for us. He alone, because He was sinless, could pay for all the sins of every man. When our Lord Jesus died at Calvary, He took all of humanity’s sins with one sacrifice of Himself at the cross. He took the judgment, punishment, and condemnation for all sins upon Himself. That’s the value of the one Man, Jesus. He is an overpayment for all our sins.

Now, does that mean that everyone is automatically forgiven? Of course not! Read this carefully. While everyone’s sin is paid for, every individual needs to make a personal decision to receive the forgiveness
of all their sins by receiving Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior. Jesus is the only way to salvation. There is no other way except through Jesus and His shed blood. Listen to what God’s Word says:

There is no ambivalence in Scripture as to how a person becomes a born-again believer in Christ. To be saved, you have to confess with your mouth that Jesus is your Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. Therefore, anyone who tells you that everyone’s sin is automatically forgiven and that you don’t need to receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior in order to be saved is scripturally inaccurate. Such teachings are heretical and are lies from the pit of hell. There is no salvation without Jesus. There is no forgiveness without the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. There is no assurance that all our sins have been forgiven without the resurrection of Jesus.

The apostle Paul proclaims, “If Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!… But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:17, 20–22).

Now, is Christ risen? Yes, absolutely! And according to the Bible, because He is risen, you are no longer in your sins. Jesus’ resurrection is the living proof that all your sins have been completely and totally forgiven. You cannot preach grace without preaching the resurrected Christ. We are saved by grace through our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ:

Our forgiveness is not contingent upon us and what we have or have not done, so no one can boast that they earned their forgiveness
through their own efforts. Through faith in Jesus’ finished work at the cross, we have received the gift of salvation. Salvation is a gift. When something is a gift, it means that you cannot work for it, earn it, or merit it. A gift is lavished upon the recipient by the giver, and Jesus gave of His own life to ransom yours.

But Pastor Prince, I don’t deserve it.

You are absolutely right. We deserve punishment for all the sins we have committed and will commit in our lifetime. We deserve death, but Jesus took that death for us and gave us eternal life. He took what we deserved and gave us what we didn’t deserve. That is why we are saved by grace—His unmerited, unearned, and undeserved favor—through faith.

Now, always remember this: How are you saved?
By grace through faith.
How have all your sins been forgiven?
By grace through faith.
How have you been made righteous?
By grace through faith.
This is your unshakable foundation, built upon the finished work of Jesus Christ. Don’t allow any teaching to diminish the cross of Jesus in your life and make salvation, forgiveness, and righteousness things you have to work at in order to maintain and keep. You received salvation, forgiveness, and righteousness by grace through faith in Jesus’ finished work, and they are secured by His obedience to the Father at the cross:

Righteousness is not about right doing. Righteousness is about right believing. You are made righteous in God’s eyes when you put your faith in Christ and His sacrifice for you. It is through Jesus’ obedience that we have been made righteous and justified from all our sins. Justification is our Lord Jesus removing all the guilt and penalty of sin and proclaiming that we have been made righteous by His shed blood.