2peter 1:2 Grace (charis-root-joy, free gift, favor done, benefit, kindness granted, divine influence upon the heart)
and peace be unto you through the knowledge (epígnōsis-intimate participation, a knowing through personal encounter) of God, and of Jesus our Lord, according( in what manner or way, how) as his divine power hath given unto us all things(totality, perfect provision) that pertain unto life(divine life) and godliness , through the knowledge of him that called us to (motion into) glory and virtue
What is grace? Grace is his divine power, it is God’s ability, it is his divine life imparted into our spirit.
What is the purpose of grace? It literally says – who has called us into his own glory and excellence.
The purpose of Grace is to enable us to partake of God’s own glory and virtue.
It is a free gift – it is all the power of God given to us freely so that we can be what we could never be by ourselves and we can do what we could never do by our own strength and by our own resources.
Unless we understand the grace of God and how it works, we will not experience our true identity and we will not be able to walk in and fulfill our divine destiny.
The church at large does not understand grace. Because of this, major problems continue to exist within the church as a whole. This is not a new problem. The Galatians’ church had a problem with this.
Galatians 2:21 I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness comes by law, then Christ is dead in vain.
Gal 3:3 are ye so foolish? Having begun in the spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?
The flesh is that union of soul and body that acts independently of the flow of the Spirit of God in us and through us.
The Galatians experienced the new birth of their spirits and were baptized in the Holy Spirit experiencing the power of the Spirit and then tried to live their Christian life out of their natural abilities and strengths.
They got saved by grace but then they tried to live the Christian life by the flesh. We call it the do better syndrome.
The church has told people to get born again, then they come into the kingdom of God and we tell them to try harder, to stop sinning, to be more committed, you got to love that person, you got to do this and you have to stop doing that. It is a kind of do better mentality that is light years away from the life that Jesus lived as an example to us.
Jesus was never bound by bitterness, he was never anxious, he was never jealous. Jesus never manipulated people. He was never insecure; he didn’t suffer from self rejection. It was simply because his intimacy with the father is what gave him his security.
The church has portrayed a different kind of lifestyle, because they do not understand grace, they have unknowingly offered people religion instead of relationship.
Most churches offer religion. If you’re a Christian you do this and you don’t do that. Religion is a system of an external set of behavioral requirements and control mechanisms, a complex system of theological doctrines.
The good news is, the gospel is the grace of God. It’s a liberating message of Christ in you the hope of glory. Jesus says this is what I want to do for you. The unrenewed mind thinks this is what I have to do for God. Jesus says no- this is what I want to do for you. Jesus is offering us eternal life; he offers us a life that will be in us with all of the qualities of God in it. This new life has the ability to transcend human limitations. But we have to understand grace and how it works.
We are saved by grace through faith, and this is not of ourselves, it is a gift of God. Salvation is not dying and going to heaven, although it includes that.
The mindset of a Christian once their spirit becomes alive unto God in the time realm (what we call being born again) is that when I die I will now go to heaven. But then they live the rest of their time upon the earth in their natural abilities that they inherited from the first Adam, with a conscious awareness of always falling short.
Salvation is being restored to a right relationship with God. A restored identity and destiny. Our spirit becomes alive to God and grows up in the divine attributes of God so that we reflect his nature. And as we grow spiritually we are given responsibility to govern in the kingdom we inherit.
2 Corinthians 5:17 therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creature, old things are passed away and behold all things have become new.
When our spirit becomes alive unto God, being born again, the life of Jesus entered our spirit. All that Jesus is was implanted into our spirit. His seed with all of his characteristics was implanted into our spirit- that is the new birth that we experience in the time realm.
The bible tells us in the psalms –ye are gods. What does that mean? We have been born from above, talking about another seed line. In that seed is all the characteristics of God-that is the new birth.
1 Peter 1:23 being born again not of a corruptible seed that came from Adam, but of an incorruptible seed, by the word of God which lives and abides forever.
So we have been born again by a seed, an incorruptible seed- a perfect seed. That seed was implanted into our spirit and we inherited by the new birth all of the characteristics of Jesus.
Grace says you know I’ve done all of this for you, it is a free gift, you didn’t earn it, I planted my life, my seed into you, all the spiritual DNA of the Lord imparted into our spirit.
Grace says relax and let the new man live through you. God’s government is a government of rest. Stop trying and start yielding, let this new life of Jesus begin to come through you.
You don’t have to try to be better, you are already better. Your spirit has inherited the very nature of Jesus. The total nature is in there. All we have to do is learn how to open up our spirit to God, so that his life flows into it, then it flows into our soul and transforms it, then it flows through our body and quickens it.
An incorruptible seed and our mind has to give place to this new life. Our mind has to start working with our spirit. Our mind has to give place, we call this surrender. You can’t do it, so stop trying and let this new life begin to live through you. That is why he said ye are Gods, because in you is the seed of God.
We didn’t get that seed by being good. It had nothing to do with our righteousness or our holiness. All that he is has been planted into us, has been imparted into us. It is not try harder but give in. stop trying and let the Spirit of God live through you.
As we become aware of the senses of our spirit, we can tune into the life of God, and it will begin to flow through us. When we learn how to walk in the spirit, then we will be enabled to manifest the divine nature in all that we do and say. A walk with God is a flow of His Spirit into us and through us so that we will be enabled to walk in divine abilities.
We hear a lot about brokenness, a broken and contrite spirit. What does that mean? And why is it necessary for God to break us? Simply because when we insist on living a Christian life out of our own strengths and our own abilities and we continue to do that, God has to break those natural strengths.
It is better to learn to step out of them, to break connection with them, to not trust in them, to understand personal powerlessness, before we have to fall upon our face in total failure, before God has to break us. We have to learn how to yield to the flow of the Spirit into us and through us.
It is impossible to live the Christian life. We have to learn how to be conscious of the presence of God, and allow his Spirit to flow through us.
Religion lives by laws and disciplines. How much of that is in the church today. Laws and disciplines, certain behaviors that are required of us. Christianity is another person, another spirit living through you.
What does it mean to be poor in spirit or have a broken spirit? To be poor in spirit means we are totally dependent upon the flow of God’s Spirit into our spirit. Unless our spirit is communing with His we have no fellowship of life.
To have a broken spirit means that we are in a place of humility, and carefulness so as to maintain a right spirit with the Lord, so that all our activities are in the spirit. We have a repentant spirit that is listening and yielding the Holy Spirit.
A broken spirit is soft and pliable, able to be shaped and molded. The opposite of a broken spirit is a proud or bitter spirit, a person with a hard heart.
If our spirit is humbled, broken of its ability to move independently of the lord, we are enabled to be the carriers of His presence.
A broken spirit is more perceptive, because a broken spirit does not evaluate circumstances by a reasoning process. A broken spirit evaluates everything in its relationship to the Lord.
If we do not have a broken spirit, we evaluate every circumstance, wondering, “Who’s to blame? Who’s at fault? Why this? Why that?” Anything less than a broken spirit will be less perceptive because it looks for answers in the wrong direction. But a broken spirit does not do this; it continually looks to the lord. When we are broken before the Lord, we see what we ought to.
The broken are now listening. God has their attention; they have an ear to what the Holy Spirit is saying.
His seed remains in us and it says that seed cannot sin. We have to live out of that seed that new creation not by striving, not by trying to be better, but just giving way to it, allowing that life to flow through us.
How often we evaluate our worth by what we do for God. Most people evaluate us; we value the worth of other people by what they do for God. And this is a deception, it is a total deception. We live under the impression that service is the key to pleasing God.
That’s not really what pleases God and it is a deception. He wants fellowship not service. He wants us to know him, not what you do for him. We spend all our lives trying to do things for God to attain favor or standing with him and with others. Some people spend their whole lives thinking that there service for God is what he desires. We get to heaven and he says I never knew you.
We cast out demons in your name, did wonderful works. I never knew you. The word knew is the word for intimacy, to know a person intimately. I never had that kind of relationship with you- who are you? But we prophesied in your name. Who are you?
Service was not the reason we were created. We were created for fellowship and companionship with the Lord. Service will come out of that, but it will be a different kind of service altogether. It will be living works, the result of the flow of the Spirit in us and through us, not dead works of self trying to please God. We were created for fellowship and companionship with Jesus. Jesus wants to share his life with us, to be our friend. If we don’t enjoy what we are doing in the Christian life something is wrong, we do not understand grace.