Grace

The backlog clearing continues...

From Grace Works

There is a vast chasm of difference between receiving God’s grace and trying to activate it. One involves human effort and striving. The other involves surrender, transparency and accepting oneself in their own brokenness. One leads to shame instead of wholeness, self-denial instead of true maturity, and ultimately fruitlessness instead of abundant life.

How does one tell the difference between striving and surrendering? Someone who is striving is trying to live up to a standard and needs God’s help to do it. Someone who has surrendered knows they will never live up to the standard and is actually strengthened by knowing they are loved anyway. The true essence of holiness is love. One doesn’t love until they know love. Knowing how much God loves you also changes how you view others. Everyone becomes worthy, everyone. The love of God lives inside you and now the “righteous requirement of the law” is fulfilled because you don’t need rules to guide your conduct, your love guides you.

Amen! I couldn't have expressed it better—scripture says that love is the fulfilling of the law. First John says that perfect love casts out all fear. Love is indeed the true essence of holiness. Which leads to the next item...

...from Alan Knox's blog, way back in May!:

Scripture cannot produce love. We do not love because we read Scripture, memorize Scripture, or meditate on Scripture. We only love because of the power of God working through us as we yield ourselves to his will.

However, Scripture can help us recognize whether or not we are loving – that is, whether or not we are yielding ourselves to the will of God and allowing the power of God to be demonstrated through love. If we approach Scripture as a mirror, God can use those writing to show us how we are currently living compared to how we live when we are submitting to him.

And the opposite:

If something is missing in people’s spiritual growth, instead of changing current activities, the church organizations simply add another program. Eventually, every night of the week is filled with different programs, meetings, committees, etc.

As always, please read the complete post to get the whole context...