Unmerited Favor (14 page)

At the cross, our acceptance is found. There, Jesus cried out with His last breath “It is finished!”
¹¹
The work is complete. The full punishment for all our sins was exacted on Jesus at the cross. God will not punish the believer again, not because He has gone soft on sin, but because all our sins
have already been
punished in the body of Jesus. God’s holiness and His justice are now on your side! Today, God is not assessing you based on what you have or have not done
.
He is assessing you based on what Jesus has done. Is God satisfied with Jesus today? Yes, of course He is! Then, to the same extent that God is satisfied with Jesus, He is satisfied with you.

God will not punish the believer again, not because He has gone soft on sin, but because all our sins have already been punished in the body of Jesus.

Sounds too good to be true? Not when you realize that this new covenant reality came at a heavy price. God’s own Son had to be crushed at Calvary for this blessing to become a reality in your life. The gift of His unmerited favor and His righteousness is only a free gift for you today because the full payment for this gift was exacted upon Jesus’ body. The cross made all the difference! Don’t let anyone hoodwink you into thinking that you need to pay for your own sins. Don’t let anyone deceive you with the lie that your eternal salvation in Christ is uncertain and shakable!

Transformation By Revelation

In the previous chapter, we learned that under the old covenant of law, you could be blessed by God only if you obeyed His commandments perfectly, both inwardly and outwardly. Conversely, if you failed, you would be cursed. We also saw how God knew from the beginning that it was impossible for anyone to be blessed under the old covenant as no man could keep the Ten Commandments perfectly. Therefore, He made a provision for man’s failings to be paid for through the blood sacrifice of innocent animals. But we know today that the animal sacrifices were only a shadow of the blood that Jesus, our perfect Lamb of God, would shed on the cross for us. Remember that we are no longer under the
old
covenant of law as we have the new covenant of grace!
¹²

Yet, would you agree with me that more Christians today know about the Ten Commandments than about the new covenant of God’s unmerited favor? For that matter, if you walked down Times Square in New York City and started to interview random people, most would probably have heard about the Ten Commandments, but know nothing about the new covenant of grace that came by Jesus Christ. In fact, the world identifies Christianity with the Ten Commandments. Isn’t it sad that the world knows us by the laws that are obsolete and not by the unmerited favor that Christ died to give us?

When young people catch a revelation of Jesus and just how precious they are in His sight, their lives will be supernaturally transformed.

It is no wonder we are losing a whole new generation of young people to the world! The law holds no appeal or attraction and the Bible itself calls the law obsolete.
¹³
If we keep on shoving the Ten Commandments down the throats of our young people, don’t be surprised when they are turned off by legalistic forms of Christianity. More importantly, don’t forget that the strength of sin is the law. The law has no power to stop sin. The law will not impart to them their precious identity in Christ, which will give them the strength to abstain from premarital sex, prevent them from getting into drug abuse and stop them from losing their sexual identity. Only God’s own sacrifice on the cross can give them their new identity as a new creation in Christ Jesus!

When young people catch a revelation of Jesus and just how precious they are in His sight, their lives will be supernaturally transformed. They will stop being harassed by suicidal thoughts. They will stop wanting to put themselves at risk to “fit in” or to get the attention that they crave. The self-esteem of our young ladies will dramatically improve as they learn to value themselves in the same way Jesus values them. Overflowing with Jesus’ perfect love for and acceptance of them, they will not be under the illusion that they need to give their bodies away to find acceptance and love from some guy. They will love themselves as Jesus loves them!

As for our young men, I believe that they will develop supernatural self-control to manage their raging hormones. They will do it not by their own willpower, but through Jesus’ power flowing through them. They will learn how to flee youthful lusts. They will know that being “cool” means respecting the opposite sex, and not putting themselves and their girlfriends at risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases and having unwanted pregnancies.

We will have a generation of teenagers who know that Jesus has an awesome destiny laid out for each of them, and the desire to be involved in gangs and destructive activities such as alcohol and drug abuse and promiscuity will dissipate in Jesus’ unmerited favor and love for them. Supernaturally, their desires for the things of the world will disappear as they get replaced with the desire for Jesus! That’s the power of God’s grace (unmerited favor) and His unconditional acceptance of us through the cross. What the law could not do, God did by sending His own Son Jesus Christ!

Youth leaders, parents and fellow ministers, this is the solution for our young people. It is not too late to reach out to our young people with arms of grace and to embrace them with the true gospel of Jesus. Let’s stop knocking our youths with the Ten Commandments and start giving them a revelation of Jesus. Let’s start unveiling the Father’s love for them!

We need a new generation of preachers who are full of grace and mercy, full of unadulterated new covenant teachings, and full of the person of Jesus, His beauty, His love and His perfect work at the cross. We cannot have the world associating Christianity with the law anymore. If we really want to impact the world and a whole new generation for Jesus, then they need to know the church for the cross and for the unmerited favor that flows from the pierced hands of our Savior!

Saved By Jesus’ Love

Let me share with you a precious testimony of a teenager whom the Lord rescued from the brink of suicide. This teenager was a school athlete who was used to excelling in sports. However, she developed some serious health problems and was told that she may never be able to compete athletically ever again.

Devastated by the prospect of being crippled by her debilitating condition, she plunged into a deep depression. When she found herself alone in her room one day, she decided to gather some Panadol tablets and a bottle of vodka, and considered taking her own life. That night, she was looking through the music files that she had in her computer, wanting to play herself a final song before swallowing the lethal combination she had prepared.

After randomly selecting from her playlist, she “happened” to play “I’m Held by Your Love,” a song that was penned by our church keyboardist and sung by one of our worship leaders. As the lyrics washed over her, she began to weep uncontrollably as the love of Jesus filled her heart:

I’m held by Your love

Upheld by Your strength

On Your shoulders You bore me

By Your faith I stand

Cherished by You, Lord

Treasured in Your sight

So close to Your heart

Held firm in Your hands...
¹⁴

Overwhelmed by the tangible presence of the Lord, her resolve to kill herself melted, and she began to cry out to God instead. She wrote to the church and the female worship leader who sang this song met with her and ministered Jesus to her. Today, this girl has completely recovered and is no longer on medication. Hallelujah! All glory to our Lord Jesus!

Let me share with you another testimony of a youth whose life has been wonderfully transformed by the unmerited favor of God. This young man smoked his first cigarette when he was only nine years old. By the time he was 14, he was already a seasoned gangster, peddling as well as taking drugs, and selling pirated movies. With the money earned, he would treat his gang members to fancy clothes or meals, and even cover transport expenses for them to congregate for gang fights! At 15, the law caught up with him and he was sent to a boys’ reformatory home where he realized that his life needed to be turned around. And that was when God came into the picture. He said:

The home was where I first encountered God, even though I did not know it was Him then. One of my counselors, a Christian lady, prayed for me and for the first time in my life, I felt that there was “someone” watching over me. I did not think much about it then, but that’s when my heart and my perspective on life began to change.

I started attending New Creation Church (NCC) in September 2005. A friend had invited me to NCC earlier, but I declined. However, one day I happened to oversleep on the train and missed my stop. The platform I got off on was completely deserted, but I noticed a plastic bag left on one of the benches. I looked at its contents to see if I could tell who it belonged to and realized that inside it were actually sermon CDs from NCC!

So even when I didn’t want to attend NCC, God sent the church to me! It was no coincidence. It was God-directed! When I played the CDs at home out of curiosity, the presence of God was so real. I experienced such intimacy with God. As I listened to Pastor Prince’s teachings, I knew that this was the God I had always believed in,
a God who loves me regardless of who I am or what I do!

Pastor Prince’s teachings have set me free, and given me a supernatural strength and passion to do His work. I don’t feel any more bondage when it comes to communicating with God, knowing that He can lead me in every single situation.

The most significant change I have experienced has been my inward transformation. I used to have a very bad temper, which got me into a lot of fights
because I was easily provoked. Being conscious of His love for me
has delivered me from that. I also went from failing in high school to doing well enough in the polytechnic to qualify for a place in a university.

This young man is now a confident, cheerful person with a bright future. He gives talks at schools and at the boys’ reformatory home that he was in to share his journey with the youths and to encourage them. His life has been so incredibly transformed that even a government agency has enlisted him to speak to troubled youths. He says that ever since Jesus entered His life, he has seen His grace and favor super abound in his life. Many doors have opened for him and his life has really been enriched, with breakthroughs in areas such as his work, studies, family and relationships. Let’s give Jesus all the glory!

That’s
what our young people need—a revelation of Jesus’ perfect love for them! There is a lost and dying world out there. My friend, the Ten Commandments
cannot
be the only thing that youths know about Christianity anymore! How can they help but think that Christianity is nothing but rules, laws and regulations on what they should or should not be doing? How can they help but imagine God to be someone who is angry with them and looking for opportunities to punish them? They have no idea that Christianity is actually an intimate
relationship
with a loving God. If they knew, they would be banging down the doors of churches every Sunday to get in to hear Jesus and His grace preached!

We need a gospel revolution to reach and impact the next generation with the true gospel of Jesus.

Clearly, the world has not heard the unadulterated gospel of grace. They have not heard the good news of God’s unmerited favor. However, this can change when we, the church, start to understand and preach the new covenant of grace! It’s a sad reality when more Christians know about the Ten Commandments under the old covenant than they do about the new covenant of grace. We need to change that! We need a gospel revolution to reach and impact the next generation with the true gospel of Jesus. Only a revelation of God’s unmerited favor will transform the next generation for Jesus. Let’s not lose our precious young people to the world.

Right now, if you are a young person reading this, I want you to know that all your answers are found in the person of Jesus. He suffered, bled and died for you. Whatever confusion you may be experiencing right now, there is hope. It is not over, so don’t give up. Jesus will
never
give up on you! Find your identity in Him and He will give you a new beginning, a fresh start and a new page to begin an exciting life with Him!

Like Joseph in the Bible, His presence will be with you and you will be a success in this life. Jesus will cause everything that your hands touch to yield prosperous results. Your relationships will be blessed. Jesus will give you good friends who won’t judge or despise you. He will also give you a loving relationship with your parents. Your studies will be blessed. Your future in Jesus will get brighter and more glorious each day!

Jesus is with you, my precious friend, and you know what? He will never leave you nor forsake you no matter what mistakes you may have made.
¹⁵
He forgives you completely and all your mistakes have been forever forgotten, washed away by His blood. Now, with Jesus by your side, you can start afresh and begin your new life of unmerited favor and success!

Chapter 12: Our Part In The New Covenant

While we are on the subject of covenants, it’s important to know that in every covenant, there are certain terms and conditions detailing how we can experience God’s blessings. In the Edenic covenant, all Adam and Eve had to do was to not partake from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Under the old covenant of law, we know that to enjoy God’s blessings, one had to obey perfectly the Ten Commandments.

What about the new covenant? Since it is based entirely on God’s unmerited favor and not our ability to keep the law or what we need to do, what exactly is our part in this covenant? How can we enjoy God’s blessings in the new covenant when it is based on the finished work of the cross of Jesus? Do we have a part to play in the new covenant of grace? These are important questions, so let’s explore this issue of “our part” in the new covenant.

To begin, let’s establish the fact that when there is a new covenant, it does not make sense to try to experience God’s blessings by going back under the old covenant. Imagine this: Your company has just been awarded a new contract with a major multinational company, and it is worth millions of dollars more than the old contract. Would you be reviewing the payment terms of the agreement based on the old contract or the new one? The answer is obvious. Yet, there are believers today who are trying to go back to the terms of the old covenant. They don’t realize that the old covenant is no longer valid and that today, we don’t even have the only provision that made being under the old covenant work for the children of Israel—the animal offerings to cover their sins.

The Terms Of The New Covenant

Since we have a new covenant, what are its terms? Turn with me to Hebrews 8:10–13 and see for yourself:

For this is the covenant that
I will
make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord:
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. None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. For
I will
be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds
I will
remember no more.” In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete...

—Hebrews 8:10–13

The old covenant of law is all about what
you
must do. However, the new covenant is full of what
God
will do. Notice the number of times “I will” appears in this passage? Instead of having laws written on cold pieces of stone, God, under the new covenant, has declared that He Himself will put His laws in your mind and write them on your heart. God is very clear that He is done with the old covenant, so make no mistake about this—the laws that He will write on your heart are
not
the Ten Commandments. So what are the laws that He will put in you?

In John 13:34, God said that He has given us a new commandment—to love one another as He has loved us. In Romans 3:27, the apostle Paul mentions the law of faith. So the laws that God will put in your heart are His royal law of love and the law of faith.

Love Is The Fulfillment Of The Law

What does it mean to have God’s law of love put in our minds and inscribed on our hearts? This brings about such powerful ripple effects that I don’t even know where to start! When you begin to experience God’s love and unmerited favor in your life, knowing that you don’t deserve His grace, you will fall head over heels in love with Jesus. When you are full of the love of Jesus, that love overflows into all your relationships, first with God, then with your spouse, family members, friends, co-workers and with everyone whom you meet.

Without any commands from God, you will start falling in love with your spouse all over again. Romance blossoms and the grace of Jesus refreshes your marriage. You won’t want to entertain thoughts of adultery because you are in love with your spouse. In fact, it is only when you are filled with Jesus’ love for you that you can fulfill Paul’s commandment in Ephesians 5:25—“Husbands, love your wives, just as
Christ also loved the church
and gave Himself for her.” Men, do you realize that the focus is not on what we have to do or on our love for our wives? The truth is that we first need to be filled with the love of Christ for us. We can love only because He first loved us!

Similarly, when you are consumed by Jesus’ love, you will not be consumed by murderous anger even when you have been wronged, but would instead, have the supernatural ability to forgive others. That is why Paul said:

For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment,
are all summed up
in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor;
therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

—Romans 13:9–10

In fact, when you receive God’s love, you will not just fulfill the law effortlessly, but you will also exceed it. The new covenant is all about having a living, dynamic and intimate relationship with Jesus. The law is inferior—
it can only command you not to commit adultery, but it cannot make you love your spouse.
Under the law, a person can stay home and not commit adultery physically with someone else, but his heart can be cold toward his spouse and he can be fantasizing about what he sees on the television and Internet. Under the law, you can have a
form
of law-keeping. But under grace, you will experience the true substance.

The law deals purely with the superficial, but grace goes much deeper. The law will not tell you how to save your marriage. But today, when God puts His laws into your heart, you can run to Him saying, “Lord, I can feel my wife growing further away from me. Teach me how to love her,” and God will lead you because He has promised that “all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.”
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If you feel the prompting to say some words of encouragement and affirmation to her, do it. If you feel the prompting to give her a hug, do it! Follow those promptings in your heart because the Lord will lead you to love your spouse!

Today, God speaks to you directly through His promptings and He has made it easy for you to know His will.

God made it so easy for us in the new covenant. We no longer have to run to prophets to find out His will for us. He Himself leads us! For those of you who want to serve the Lord, but don’t know where to start, just ask yourself what is in your heart. If you have a desire to work among children, then do so. As a new covenant believer, that’s how your Father leads you. He puts His laws in your mind and writes them on your heart!

Perhaps you feel a prompting to bless someone financially, even though the person looks prosperous. Follow that prompting because today, God speaks to you directly and He has made it easy for you to know His will. We all know how looks can be deceiving. For example, many con artists believe that church folks are gullible. Therefore, they dress down with a well-rehearsed sob story so as to move you to give to them. On the other hand, there are noble people who dress up on Sundays to honor the occasion, but they are in dire straits financially. Hence, we need to follow the promptings of our hearts and not the sight of our eyes. So when you feel a desire to do something good for someone, do it, knowing that you have a brand-new heart that hears God, and that it is God who works in you both the willingness and the performance of it!
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The Clause That Makes The New Covenant Work

Now, you know that the old covenant was contingent on the works and obedience of the Israelites to the law. So what does the new covenant hinge on? Beloved, God is so good. The new covenant that
God
has made is not dependent on anything that you and I must do because He knows that we will always fail. Listen carefully. The new covenant works because of one thing only, and it is the last clause of the new covenant—Hebrews 8:12. To the measure that you have a revelation of this clause and all its blessings, to that measure you will walk in it. Are you ready to look at this clause?

For
I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

—Hebrews 8:12

Note the word “For.” It means “because.” The new covenant works
because
God says that He will be merciful to our unrighteousness, and our sins and lawless deeds He will remember no more! “No more” means that there was a time God remembered our sins, even to punish them to the third and fourth generations.
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This is found in the Ten Commandments. However, today, God says emphatically, “No more!” (Double negative in the Greek.) “No more” means that God will never again remember our sins against us because He remembered (to punish) all our sins in the body of His Son. Jesus bore God’s punishment of our sins on the cross. Now, we can walk in the new covenant and hear God say, “Your sins and lawless deeds I remember no more.”

My friend, the new covenant works because of the last clause. In other words, because of Hebrews 8:12, God can put His laws in our minds and write them on our hearts, and all of us can know Him and be led by Him!

Our Part In The New Covenant Of Grace

So here comes the million-dollar question: What is our part in the new covenant of grace? Our part in the new covenant of grace is to simply
believe
!

Next question: What should we believe? The answer is simple. We are to believe in Jesus! But follow me closely now, this answer may not be as straightforward as it seems. If you were to ask people on the streets if they believed in Jesus, you would probably get all kinds of answers. There would be those who believe that Jesus existed as a historical figure, moral philosopher, charismatic leader or prophet. Sadly, the truth is that believing all these things about Jesus will not save them.

Your part in the new covenant of God’s unmerited favor is to believe that you are completely forgiven of all your sins, and that the blood of Jesus cleanses you from all your unrighteousness and lawlessness.

Today, we have bookstores selling books that are based on the teachings of the Gnostics, who do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God. These writings attempt to devalue and naturalize Jesus to make Him a mere mortal, a historical figure and nothing more. Just because you see the word “Jesus” mentioned in books or on their covers does not mean that their authors believe in Jesus. Many of these writings are actually anti-Christ.

What It Means To Believe In Jesus

So let’s establish what it means to believe in Jesus. To believe in Jesus is to first and foremost, believe and receive Him as your personal Lord and Savior who died on the cross for all your sins. To believe in Jesus is to believe that Jesus is the only way to salvation and that once you receive Him, you receive the gift of eternal life. Furthermore, to believe in Jesus is to believe beyond the shadow of a doubt that all your sins—past, present and future—were all punished on the cross and that today, (this is where the last clause of the new covenant applies) all your sins and lawless deeds He remembers NO MORE!

Based on the new covenant of grace, what does God want you to believe? He wants you to believe with all your heart that He meant every word when He said, “...I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” You see, in the new covenant, there is nothing for us to do but to believe! Your part in the new covenant of God’s unmerited favor is to believe that you are completely forgiven of all your sins, and that the blood of Jesus cleanses you from all your unrighteousness and lawlessness.

In God’s eyes today, you are made perfectly righteous by Jesus’ finished work. The emphasis of the new covenant is to know and believe that you are forgiven of all your sins and that God has literally erased them from His memory. If you don’t believe this, it will be impossible for you to depend on and expect God to protect, provide and prosper you. If you don’t believe this, it will rob you of the ability to receive His goodness, His blessings, His unmerited favor and His success in your life.

The Power Of The Blood Of Jesus