Empowered

My wife and I discuss God’s grace often, sometimes while driving in the car, while on the phone, at home, etc. This particular discussion took place right before going to sleep on a Wednesday night. The time or place have nothing to do with the discussion it’s just, for me, cool to have these wonderful discussions regarding the grace of God, together, so often and to be in complete agreement (usually). God is so good.

This particular conversation was about “excusing vs. grace.” My wife brought up the subject by saying “Grace does not excuse inappropriate behavior.” I though. “Oh, Oh, what did I do?” but, it wasn’t about me (this time), it was about the temptation to permit ungodly behavior in a friend or loved one because we feel we should extend “our grace” toward that person and overlook the sin.

“For the grace of God (His unmerited favor and blessing) has come forward (appeared) for the deliverance from sin and the eternal salvation for all mankind. It has trained us to reject and renounce all ungodliness and worldly (passionate) desires, to live discreet (temperate, self-controlled), upright, devout (spiritually whole) lives in this present world” Titus 2:11-12 (AMP)

Adam and Eve chose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because they were told they would be, "like God." We are born ruined by their sinful attempt but praise God we are saved by grace through faith. Now I know I'm likely to be "preaching to the choir here." And unless you are in some kind of cult you know that we are "saved" only through the blood of Christ Jesus. God's grace through faith has restored us into the family of God. Unfortunately... we still have that sin nature, that desire to be like God which is why we think it a Godly idea to bestow "our natural grace" on others.

Our grace does nothing to remove sin, in truth, it permits sin to continue. The “Hate the sin, love the sinner” solution. God’s grace not only removed our sin, it removed our sin permanently when we made Jesus the Lord of our life. Our grace permits behavior, God’s grace removes the penalty for the behavior and ultimately the behavior as well.
Are we to do when a fellow Christian is obviously not walking uprightly? Do we simply ignore him or her? NOT AT ALL! The greatest attribute of God is love. Love describes the very essence of God’s nature. He displayed His nature when He sent Jesus to die for us. “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us? (Romans 5:8).
God’s love gives without preconditions. God didn’t wait until we deserved salvation. He sent Jesus when we were helpless sinners, totally undeserving of His mercy and grace.
Every believer has God’s love within. This means, as Christians we have the ability to walk in God’s love and manifest to the world what that love is really like. In this way, the world will know that we are Christ’s disciples. When the Church shows the selfless love of God among its members and toward those that are outside, the world takes note that these are followers of Jesus.
For this reason, love is the greatest and by far the most important of all the character qualities and by far the most important of all character qualities that we are exhorted to demonstrate. “But now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). No amount of mighty miracles can replace walking in love. Without love, miracles mean very little. Even those with tremendous faith amount to nothing in God’s sight if they don’t operate in love (1 Corinthians 13:3).
But God has placed within us the power to demonstrate His love. We can learn to walk and operate in the kind of love that God has and is. As we do, we’ll become more and more effective in His service. We’ll be living demonstrations of the glorious “grace and truth” that the disciples saw so vividly in Jesus (John 1:14).
We are to follow the example of Jesus and love that person, not ignore the sin, not love with our “emotional love” because that love depends on how we feel at the time but with the love that God poured into our hearts at salvation. The Greek word used in the New Testament to describe God’s love is agape. Agape refers to the kind of love which is bestowed on those who don’t deserve it. Agape is unearned, unmerited love. It gives, asking nothing in return. It’s the love that God demonstrated toward us. God is agape! He loves us while we were still sinners We were alienated from Him and in rebellion against His plan for us. But He loved us enough to send Jesus. Now Jesus wants to send you and I. Not to bestow ineffective human grace but to remind those who may be backslid of what God deposited in them through Jesus. The ability to walk in the complete love of God.