So, Saul has this great encounter with grace. Instead of being killed by God, God says “get up, go into the city”. Once he gets there God says, here’s what I want you to do. You will be called Paul, you will write half of the new testament about my love and grace. You will preach to the Gentiles and raise up apostles.
You notice that Saul had a wrong perception or belief about who God truly is and thereby went about killing and tormenting those “in the way”. It’s a picture of people here in the church today who have a wrong belief of the true love, grace and peace of God, so they go about trying to impose their works mentality on others. That kills their ability to have a relationship with God.
Can you imagine? God selects a killer of Jews, Pharisee of Pharisees, great keeper of the law, professor of religious legalism, and commissions him to write about his love and grace. Doesn’t let him teach the Jews, because it wouldn’t be a challenge. He knew Jewish customs and laws.
So instead, God sends him to the Gentiles so that he has to rely on God’s grace, God’s strength, God’s wisdom in order to complete his mission. God not only said I’m going to forgive you, but I’m going to bless you and I’m going to use you to write my word.
Let me say that no human being can live a balanced life or a successful life and be stable living under the impending judgement of God. Well, brother Mark, this all sound great but it’s just not “the way” I’ve been taught. It’s just not “the way” I’ve heard it. Well, your wrong believing in “the way” you’ve been wrongly taught is getting in “THE WAY” of furthering the gospel of the kingdom. It’s time to repent from your wrong believing, because you’ve been taught wrong.
It’s this very thing of wrong teaching, religion and legalism that causes God to be misrepresented. Not only does it cause people to believe they can work or perform to obtain mercy and favor from God, but it causes them to fall into the lie that God is in control of everything. God is not in control of everything, but He is in charge of everything.
If you really believe that God controls everything, what’s the use of doing anything? After all, it’s all up to God. If you believe that God is trying to teach you something through sickness or poverty, why see a doctor or look for a good job? Why not suffer as much as you can and really learn the lesson? I mean, how dumb can you be and still breathe?
That is terrible doctrine. Isaiah 5:20 reads “What sorrow for those who say that evil is good and good is evil”. There are denominations today teaching that when you get sick or experience financial problems, God is causing it so that He can teach you something or humble you. That is an example of calling evil good.
God is not responsible for killing babies, for rape, violence, poverty, or sickness. Satan is the author of evil, and the Bible clearly states that we are to resist the Enemy (James 4:7). Resist means to actively fight against something. If we aren’t fighting against sickness, for example, then we are submitting to it.
To casually say to Satan “Please leave us alone” is not resisting the devil. We need to get angry at the devil, and we won’t get angry if we believe that God is the one either causing or allowing the problem.
God’s will doesn’t automatically come to pass. I’ve said this before. God’s perfect will is almost never done, but God’s perfect plan will always be done. Jesus said that not everybody will be saved (Matt. 7:13), yet Scripture says it is the will of God that none should perish (2 Pet. 3:9).
God has provided salvation, healing, financial provision, and everything else we need. But if we don’t respond in faith to what has been provided by grace, we won’t receive.
God’s will is for everyone to be healed. Acts 10:38 says that Jesus went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil, and it called what He did “good.” And 1 Peter 2:24 tells us that we were healed by His stripes, yet most of us still do not receive His healing into our lives.
If God was guilty of all the things we blame Him for, there isn’t a civilized nation on the face of this earth that wouldn’t convict Him of crimes against humanity. I think the idea that God either causes or allows evil so that somehow, we will grow spiritually is the worst heresy in the body of Christ. It renders people passive and takes away their hope.
Just remember that it is not the truth that sets you free; it’s the truth you know that will make you free (John 8:32). And the truth is that you need to put your faith in what God has already done, not in what you do.
God, by His grace, has already provided healing, prosperity, forgiveness for sin, and much more. However, it must be appropriated by faith. God has done His part by giving His Son, Jesus. His grace has provided everything through the sacrifice of Jesus.
This is nearly-too-good-to-be-true because there is absolutely nothing we can do to earn it and nothing we can do to lose it. Our part is simple: We respond to His grace by faith and appropriate what has already been accomplished.
Once you get the full revelation of His Marvelous, Ridiculous, Radical Grace, you’ll drive religious people and legalists crazy. You know how I know that? Some of you reading this will shake your head NO in a few places and think that can’t be right. Others will question “can that really be true”? And yet others will hunger even more to get further revelation of this absolute Truth.
I’m in no way hindered by the call God put on my life to preach and teach this powerful Gospel of Grace. My goal is to teach it as radically as Paul the Apostle did. If people don’t continually question this teaching as being too radical and that it just gives people a license to sin, then I’m not teaching it like Paul and I’m not doing it justice.
Just remember that God is the giver of good gifts. James 1:17,18 reads:
17 Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. 18 He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession.
Just study that. He is the giver of good and perfect gifts, not sickness, disease, poverty, and pain to teach us a lesson. The verse says He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. Then verse 18 confirms what He never changes from when it reads “And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession”.
Why would a God that sees us as His prized possessions, cause us harm in anyway? He’s a good God all the time. You wouldn’t arbitrarily resort to harming your children, or give them poison to teach them not to drink it. Come on.
This gospel of grace is not difficult or hard. It is legalism and religion that opposes the simple act of receiving the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness. It is that failed belief and false mindset that causes God to be misrepresented. Put away your works oriented, performance-based Christianity, and simply receive the favor and mercy of God. Grace and Peace.
