Principles Review
· It's a natural law of God that every natural tree produces seeds and fruit after its own kind (Genesis 1:11).· Imagine that trees could talk. If you came upon a tree that insisted it was an Apple tree, but he consistently produced lemons instead of apples, anyone with any sense would know that the tree which insisted he was an Apple tree when in fact he consistently produced lemons was either confused, deceived, delusional or outright lying. In any case such a tree would certainly not be telling the truth.
· Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus) used the same example. He said that we could recognize what was true and what was false by its fruit (Matthew 7:15-20).
· We don't often think of it this way, but the spiritual life works exactly the same way. The simple reality is that the sinful nature produces certain fruits in the human being (Galatians 5:19-21; Romans 1:18-32; 2 Timothy 3:1-13). Conversely, the Holy Spirit produces vastly different fruits in the human being (Galatians 5:22-25). Love produces certain fruits and characteristics in a human being (1 Corinthians 13:4-8). Genuine faith produces works of obedience in agreement with what God said. If we do not act according to what God has said, then we really did not believe Him (James 2:18; James 2:26). And so genuine faith than produces certain identifiable fruits - mainly acting in obedience to what God has said, because that’s what truly demonstrates that we actually BELIEVE God. Heavenly God-given wisdom produces certain fruits and characteristics. Likewise, earthly human wisdom has certain other identifying characteristics (James 3:13-18). We can tell the difference by properly assessing the fruit.
· The same absolute principle holds true with the concept of God’s True Biblical Grace. True Grace also produces its own identifiable fruit. In this day and age were very fond of saying that a great many things are permissible because we are now, “Under Grace;” but have we really compared the fruit of our lives to see if they really and truly match the fruit of God’s True Biblical Grace? Do we know how to recognize the fruit of God’s True Biblical Grace when we see it? Are we insisting that we are Apple trees; all the while we are consistently producing crops of lemons? Are we really producing fruit consistent with God’s Grace? It’s crucial that we learn to spot the fruit of Grace, lest we deceive ourselves.
· In order to sharpen our grace spotting skills, we closed out part one of this series by starting a game called, “Spot the Grace. The rules are pretty simple. Each item has a set of A or B contrasting options and you have to identify which one is grace, and which one isn’t really the grace of God at work. Doing this type of thing really sharpens our spiritual eyesight.
Let's Continue Playing Spot the Grace
Which of these is truly the fruit of grace?+++A. I use God’s name loosely and irreverently. I dishonor and disrespect my parents. I mock, make fun of, or find rationalizations to disobey or disregard God appointed authority, even if what they’re asking me to do happens to be godly.
B. I choose to love honor and obey Yahweh. I choose to submit myself under His authority, and to respect the authorities which He places above me. Which of these requires the grace of God in order for the person to do it successfully?
+++“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in Them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.Which of these is truly the fruit of God’s Grace?+++A. I choose to learn what God has made Holy and what He has separated out for Himself. I choose to respect and honor those things, because I Love and respect the One True Creator God and I want to treat as Holy what He calls Holy.
B. The way that I try to prove that I’m under God’s Grace is to disrespect and disregard God’s Laws, and to show little or no respect for what He calls Holy, because I don’t have to. I will however readily embrace, honor, and celebrate the festival days, customs, traditions and decorations which were used for centuries to worship other gods, and to murder believers, because Roman emperors, Roman Imperial senates and Roman Catholic popes said that I should, as long as I do it, “In Jesus’ Name.” What’s the matter with you, can’t you see how grace filled I am by living this way?
+++“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
Which of these is truly the fruit of grace?+++
- I am resistant to almost all authority including my parents. Rules are okay for people who need them, but I’m smart enough that I don’t really need them. I get a real charge out of finding loopholes around the rules, because it shows off how smart I am.
- I choose to love honor and obey Yahweh. I choose to submit myself under His authority, and to respect the authorities which He places above me. Which of these requires the grace of God in order for the person to do it successfully?
+++You shall not murder.Which of these is truly the fruit of grace?+++A. I acknowledge wrongs done to me. I do not pretend that the wrongs were not done, or that it did not hurt, but at the same time I sincerely choose to forgive the person. I choose to look upon them with compassion. I choose to pray for their blessing and not their harm. I choose not to hold their wrongs against them, but I pray them to be blessed. When I do pray for their repentance, it is because I sincerely do not want their misdeeds to be counted against them on the Day of Judgment, but I want them to repent so that they can truly be blessed and accepted by God, just as I wish to be accepted myself.
B. I hold onto grudges and painful resentments, even unto hatred. When someone has wronged me, I am much quicker to look for their faults and weaknesses the next time so that I can feel justified in holding on to the bad feelings, and I don’t have to relate to the person on an equal footing. Which of these requires the grace of God in order for the person to do it successfully?
Which of these is truly the fruit of grace?+++You shall not commit adultery.A. I chose to be faithful to Yahweh and to my spouse. I do not open myself up to situations that would cause me to look at others lustfully, or that would incline me toward comparing my spouse with other people. I keep my marriage bed untainted by wicked passions or behaviors which could cause me to degrade, belittle, or dishonor my spouse or the purity of our marriage.
B. I rationalize, give excuses, and find reasons to give vent to my own sexual desires instead of obeying what God says. I look at and act toward others lustfully. I compare my spouse with others. I tell myself that it’s my body and I can do what I want and I tell myself that it’s okay because I believe in Jesus, so God will overlook it, because He knows that that’s just how I am, and I just can’t really help it. Which of those is the fruit of God’s grace working inside a human being?
Which of these is truly the fruit of grace?+++You shall not steal.
A. I crave and desire what I cannot readily have, so I forcibly or surreptitiously take it from my neighbor.
B. I choose to allow God to change me so that I am not controlled by greed. I choose not to take what belongs to another. Which of these is truly producing the fruit of God’s grace?
+++“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.Which of these is truly the fruit of grace?+++A. Yahweh Almighty God and His Words are TRUTH (Psalm 119:143; John 17:17). God’s Law is TRUTH (Psalm 119:142). His Spirit reminds us of what He said and guides us into all TRUTH (John 16:13). His Son, the Messiah is the embodiment and personification of TRUTH (John 14:6) When His Love is working within us, it causes us to reject iniquity, and only to rejoice in, to honor, and to esteem what God says is TRUTH. Since I love God and I love the truth, I do not want to lie or bear false witness against God. I do not want to misrepresent Him, or His Son. Since I love God and the TRUTH, I do not want to pretend that He approves or accepts something, which He clearly says that He doesn’t. I don’t want to pretend that something is godly, when He says it’s not. Since I love God and I love the truth, I do not want to lie and misrepresent myself, and I do not want to deceive my neighbor or bear false witness against him, because such a thing contradicts my Heavenly Father’s Character.
B. I treat truth as though it were relative and adjustable according to what is most advantageous to me or my circumstances. I change or recolor events to make myself look better and others look worse. I rationalize and tweak Scripture to give myself apparent justification for choosing to do what I already prefer doing instead of choosing to do what God prefers. I’m willing to lie, to deceive or to manipulate in order to give myself or my point of view an advantage. Which of these scenarios demonstrates the fruit of Grace?
+++“You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.”Which of these is truly the fruit of grace?+++A. I look at coveting, being jealous and craving other people’s possessions and blessings as being equal to the sin of idolatry. It’s the same as worshiping other gods, or worshiping the real God falsely. I choose to look at it that way because that’s what God calls it (Colossians 3:15). When I spot coveting operating in me, I run to God and I confess it as being the evil and the sin that it truly is. I treat coveting like it’s an enemy to my soul, because it is. I don’t want to keep it, but I eagerly want God to thoroughly kill it out of me, well before it permeates my attitudes and beliefs systems, and thus harms me, or it harms my relationship with God, or it harms my relationship with my neighbor.
B. I claim to believe and follow Jesus Christ. I don’t really want to call it coveting (because that would be bad), so I will develop a complicated theological system where I believe and teach that God wants me to be happy. I’ll develop a theology that says that God wants me to have abundant wealth and prosperity, and that if I don’t have these things, something must be horribly wrong or unjust in my life. The clear reading of Scripture doesn’t teach prosperity in that manner, but hey, TV preachers preach that kind of gospel quite frequently and they get incredibly wealthy doing it, so God must approve, right? Of course, this kind of ideology causes me to look at people with greater advantages than myself with envy, with jealousy and with suspicion. I get upset when they seem “blessed” more than I am, but hey, I’m a Christian. I believe Jesus. There is no real hurry in overcoming these coveting attitudes, (that is if I ever even reach the point of seeing these attitudes as being wrong like God says they are, because up to now, I’ve twisted Scripture so much that I’ve trained myself to believe these coveting attitudes are actually Christian, instead of calling them sin, so I don’t even see a problem yet), but it doesn’t really matter whether I truly overcome coveting or not, because avoiding coveting is not what saves us anyway. Jesus is what saves us. So I can keep my ‘faith in Jesus,’ and my coveting attitudes living side-by-side in me, and I will be just fine. I can continue to disobey God, because I’m not under the law, I’m living under Grace?
Really?! Is that REALLY GRACE teaching us to think, to believe and to walk in such a manner before the HOLY God of Heaven?!! Really, that’s Grace?! Are you absolutely sure that it is grace, and not Lawlessness motivating that type of thought pattern and behavior?
What Is the True Fruit of Grace?
Let’s think about this for a moment. How much of God’s Grace is required to be at work in a person, for us to CONTINUE committing idolatry and worshiping other gods, instead of honoring the Real Almighty Creator? It requires NO grace from God to continue in that way of life. It requires no Grace to invent our own religion in order to justify feeding our own passions and desires instead of obeying God. Cain did as much. Nimrod and Babylon have done as much. The Canaanites did as much. The Assyrian Empire, the Grecian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Roman Catholic Church with their Inquisitions did as much. The Nazis did as much. Islam and the Qur’an are now copying that same example. Are all these cultures truly exhibiting that they were under God’s Grace? It doesn’t require the Grace of God to invent our own religion, to give ourselves the excuse to feed our passions, and to persecute or kill those who are trying to obey the Scriptures so that there is no one left to question or oppose your actions.
On the other hand, repenting and turning away from idolatry and choosing to follow the One True Creator God, and worshiping Him according to what He says He wants. THAT TAKES GRACE. Loving your neighbor as yourself, it takes God’s Grace and power to be able to pull that off successfully and consistently. Loving our enemies; doing good to those who hate us; praying for those who despitefully use us and persecute us. That’s not common to human nature. It requires for God’s Grace to be thoroughly working in us in order for us to be able to do that successfully!! When we are truly able to live this way; then that is the proof that we are under grace, because God’s grace is required to be at work within us in order for us to do it successfully.
Continuing to use God’s name in vain is not proof that I’m under Grace, is it? Any heathen who lacks respect for God, lacks respect for himself who is created in the image of God and thoroughly lacks self-control can easily open his mouth and spew out profanity and use God’s name in vain with impunity. On the other hand, overcoming that sin, having a change of heart, developing reverence for God, self respect and self-control that proves that God’s grace is at work there, because it takes God’s grace to be able to repent in that way.
Rationalizing my sin, making excuses for my sin, keeping and indulging my sin, disobeying God and living as I choose does not prove that I’m under grace, because it does not require the grace of God to be working in me in order to accomplish those types of things. I was capable of living that way long before I knew Yahweh and the Messiah.
Please don’t deceive yourself. Please don’t allow yourself to be deceived by others. Disregarding God’s will and doing what is right in our own eyes, disregarding what God said, to do what is common and popular. Disobeying God in order to do what seems right to us is NEVER a sign that you are living under God’s Grace. It doesn’t require God’s grace to live that way. Any unrepentant unregenerate heathen sinner can quite naturally live in the exact same manner, and rationalize himself right into hell.
· On the other hand, recognizing my sin as being sin and agreeing with God because He calls it sin; that’s GRACE at work in my life.
· Hating my sin and being repulsed by it, because that more closely matches the way that God is repulsed by sin; that’s God’s GRACE at work in my life.
· Choosing to repent, choosing to radically turn away from what God said is wrong, simply because He said it was wrong, and I take him at His Word, and I choose to agree with Him; now that’s GRACE at work in my life.
· Choosing to let Yahweh change my desires so that I delight in what delights Him, instead of living to please myself; that’s GRACE at work in my life.
· Choosing to desire, choosing to learn, choosing to obey, and choosing to persevere in obeying Yahweh’s Laws, Commandments, and Instructions; that’s the fruit of God’s Grace working in my life.
It doesn’t require the grace of God for me to disobey God; any sinful Yutz can do that without God’s help and power. It requires the Grace of God working in a person to OVERCOME disobeying God, not to continue disobeying God. That’s the point. The fruit of grace is OVERCOMING our sin, NOT continuing to indulge it.
Yeshua the Messiah Himself is proof that I'm right. Scripture tells us that He is full of Grace and Truth (John 1:14). Messiah never broke a Commandment of God (Hebrews 4:15). Now, He stood against the religious traditions of men when those traditions violated God's Commandments, but He always upheld and followed Yahweh's Laws and Commandments. Jesus Christ is full of grace and truth. Grace and truth live inside of Him, and comprise Who and What He IS.
What fruit did that produce? He kept the Father's Commandments. He spoke the Father's Words. He put the Father's Will well ahead of His own. So how DARE we teach that breaking the Sabbath or breaking any other Commandment of God in Scripture is proof that we are walking under God's Grace?! Come on!! We can all be deceived by tradition, I was too, but breaking God's Law is the opposite of how Grace functions! Christians wake up!
Brother R. Michel Lankford
