Christian Living
Saved By Grace For Eternal Life
Ephesians 2:1-6 and you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience; among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace are ye saved;) and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
Christ is our Redeemer, our Brother, and our Deliverer. He is the instrument of God’s deliverance of mankind from sin. The day of the Lord is coming, the day of the last judgment and the end of the world. It is a day that God will punish evil. Time and time again God warned us through his prophets of the day of the Lord. We have time and time again been warned to repent and turn to the Lord for there is life in Christ. This is God’s grace; not giving us the death and judgment we deserve. Do we desire to see the day of the Lord? It is a day of darkness and not light. Except we be saved we shall perish. God knows our manifold transgressions and our mighty sins; we afflict the just, quick to take a bribe, and we turn aside the poor from their rights.
We are a people, Lord the help; that seek not the good but do evil continually. So why do we need grace you say? Why do we need to let the dead bury the dead and follow Jesus? Paul with unmistakable emphasis declares by grace are ye saved! He dispels any notion that salvation is in any sense of ourselves and asserts its gratuitous character as a gift of God. There is left no doubt as to the cause of men’s salvation. God alone effects the sinner’s salvation not the sinner himself that may start it and God completes it or the sinner effects his salvation by his own efforts. The sinner’s salvation begins when they hear the Word, repents and confesses Christ. Ephesians 2:8 for by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God. It is made from the premise that man is dead in trespasses and sins, and a child of wrath by nature, therefore they are unable to help themselves out of their misery under sin.
What is this grace that saves the sinner? It is an affection in God which springs from his mercy, love, and kindness. This same righteous God who has a horror of sin, loves the sinner in spite of their sin with an active desire to reclaim him. This desire of God is saving grace; it always has sin for its correlate. Saving grace exists in God together with His holiness and righteousness. The gospel proclaims God’s saving grace made known to us in the mystery of His Will according to His good pleasure. Out of the same divine mind has come the stern law with its grievous injunctions and terrible doom and the sweet evangel of pardon and peace to sinners.
Saving grace then is never any quality in the sinner by which he propitiates God against whom he has sinned; it is never some virtue infused into the sinner by which the latter is enabled to procure his salvation; but it is always that remarkable disposition in God to be favorable to the sinner (the benign favor of God towards sinners) or (the gracious kindness which God bears towards us in His heart). It is therefore utterly unmerited on the part of the sinner and cannot be purchased or brought at any other price than the one paid at Calvary by His Son. God had decreed to save fallen man back in the eternal counsel long before our time. Christ effected the sinner’s reconciliation with His Father. Saving grace embraces the entire evangelical plan of salvation from repentance over sin through conversion, justification, sanctification, preservation in faith, to glorification and lastly it embraces the means by which God communicates salvation to the sinner.
Before faith in Christ has been created in his heart man does not cooperate with the grace that is offered him according to I Corinthians 2:14; but the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. Grace yet does not operate in an irresistible manner Matthew 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens unto her wings and ye would not! After the Gospel of grace however has won the heart by its persuasive power, he does work together with the Holy Spirit in the sanctification of his life however not of or by his own natural power but by the power of the new spiritual life which saving grace has created in him. It is God that is able to do abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.
We that are saved are saved by grace. God told Paul in II Corinthians 12:9 that his grace was sufficient for him for his strength is made perfect in weakness. The things we have the most problem with are the things that make us strong when we overcome them. God doesn’t always take things that bothers or buffets us away from us but uses them to bring us to a state of thankfulness. It reminds us that God is yet able. It reminds us that God’s grace is sufficient for us. We then take pleasure in those things after we have come to realize that they aren’t there to take us out but it makes us strong in the Lord. We are saved by grace, converted; bear godly conduct and serving love, or their virtues and good works but this is not saving grace, but a manifestation of its presence and operation in believers; for otherwise salvation would be by works, which Scripture forbids in Ephesians 2:8.
Had not it been for God’s grace we all would perish. Hell would have enlarged itself and Satan would have overthrown God. Had we been given the punishment due us for the sin we have done we would have built Satan’s kingdom as he had planned. God is our strength and song and he is become our salvation. He has loaded us with his benefits. Great is his mercy towards us for he has delivered our souls from the lowest hell. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God and yet not obey his Word; it’s God’s grace that has kept us all from being consumed in a smoke. He reasons with us and though our sins are as scarlet they shall be as white as snow, though they are red like crimson they shall be as wool because of God’s grace. Because of God’s grace we too are saved like Israel with an everlasting salvation.
When we take his yoke upon us, bring all of our heaviness to Him, He will give us rest. We just need to make up our minds that we will endure all the way to the end for it is needful. Only they that endure to the end shall be saved. Repentance and remission of sins brings us to worship and worship brings us to God. If we lift Him up from the earth He will draw all men to him. If we abide in him and He in us we will find all the help we need to run this race that is set before us. Without God we can do nothing; it is his saving grace that keeps us. The Gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation which we cannot get around. Herein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith for the just shall live by faith. We have to work out our own salvation and allow God’s saving grace to work in and through us. Jesus became the author of eternal salvation unto all of us that will obey Him. He was made perfect through all he went through for us. He makes intercession for us daily, he stands at the door of our hearts knocking, begging us to open up and let him come in for he wants to save us. Grace is given freely and we can receive God’s amazing grace in our own bosom.
God’s grace is there because it’s not his will that any man perish. The end will come when the Gospel has been preached all over the world to all men; men are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. All nations would have heard the Word and sinners given a time of repentance would have been given to all of mankind. Whosoever hear the Word and believe it unto repentance will have everlasting life. Jesus the Son of man did not come to destroy our lives but to save them.
I John 1:1-2 that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us)
Life, eternal life is the life God promised man that they were to prepare for in the Earth. This preparation was for a return to our Heavenly home from whence we originally came. Something is wrong; why is the world dying and accepting to go to an unprepared eternal resting place? Why would a man want to associate his Soul with Hell for Eternity when there is a mansion prepared for him in Heaven? Does anyone wonder about Eternal life, evidently not when so many are dying such meaningless death? Man was always promised eternal life, to live forever. What came between man living and ruling in this earth is the fact that he disobeyed his creator. Man disobeyed his creator when he bowed down to his wife's demand that he eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree, for Satan had beguiled her and nothing happened so she had power of persuasion over her husband.
God had created man with an eternal purpose. Satan still deceives man today with his half-truths. He takes just enough of truth to a situation to make his case seem like it is true. Many have been deceived by his deceptive antics. No one can live like a Devil all of his life and expect to accept Christ on their dying bed and expect to receive the same reward as one that has loved, obeyed and lived for God throughout the process of their time of defilement and works.
Eternal life for man was an original plan of God from the beginning of creation, from the time that he breathed the breath of life in man and he became a living soul. This brought forth the union of the Soul and the Body and this coming together is what gave man Eternal Life. Eternal means existing always, essentially unchanging, everlasting, timeless, infinite, endless, limitless, immoral, invariable, permanent, fixed, constant, enduring, lasting, or everlasting in eternity.
There is life after death for God's created beings, man and woman. In life they must make preparations to have that life. God has given them everything to sustain them in life, the capacity to grow, have functional activities, and the continued ability to change for the better until their departure in this natural life. Eternal life is the always, existing union of soul and body. Life is considered the period between birth and death in a man's life. In times past man lived longer lives than that of today. In Genesis they had promise of one hundred twenty years and in Psalm David said man then had a promise of threescore and ten which was seventy years. Sin brought forth death and decay to the days of man in the earth. Children today are more learned that men and women were then. They existed before Christ, but now these people living after Christ has the living Word that was manifested in the earth and there is no excuse for the sin of mankind.
We have the road map laid out in front of us and we do understand what is on the road and the sacrifices made and the choices given them for that road to exist. For our God and this is not to say or imply that everyone know Christ, why he came into the world, and why he died but, we do know that because he came from Heaven and dwell among men to show them a better way to live; they should accept his finished work of the Cross. Man can be in obedience to the Father God which is in Heaven. Man has a reason to praise the Lord in the beauty of Holiness. His own individual actions and how they view Christ in their lives will cause them to miss out on God's promise of eternal life. They imprison themselves in the mind because of the sin that they try to hide there.
Man’s choices lead them either to Christ or away from Christ; the pleasure of sin is deceiving in that it is only for that moment. The Christian must be careful not to listen to the enemy too long. When Satan brings accusations on ourselves or on our sisters and brothers in Christ, we listen to a half- truth. Man need to arise out of that state that they become inactive in because they have assumed an imaginary animation of what another Christian is or is not doing. Wrong answer, they will miss Heaven. Holiness is right and somebody is wrong, man cannot do what they may want to and go to Heaven. We must purge the sin that so easily besets them time and time again. Life is existence, being, sentience, viability, lifetime, days, efficacy, mortal human being, individual, soul, living and way of life, lifestyle, and passions.
Our new saved life in Christ affords us grace but it’s not to be misused or taken for granted. Habitually taking advantage of the grace we have been given will cause us to miss heaven and abort eternal life. We have been saved by grace for eternal life.
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