Face it, we have all been there. We mess up so badly and think God is utterly disappointed with us. We entertain thoughts of condemnation and guilt over our actions and feel totally unworthy of God’s grace. Whenever I have felt like this, these 8 verses have always helped me get over myself and run to Dad! They will help you too I know it!

Isa 43:25            “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; And I will not remember your sins.

 God blotted out your transgression FOR HIS SAKE, not yours. Sure it’s great for you too, but God did it for his own sake, because if He didn’t, He would have had no other choice but to kill you. So rest assured, God made the choice to not kill you.

Jer 31:34            “No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

We will know the Lord? How? Because we will come to realize He is utterly good because He forgave us when we didn’t deserve it.

Jer 33:8     ‘I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against Me, and I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned and by which they have transgressed against Me.

ALL means ALL! All iniquity, all transgression, all sin pardoned and cleansed by Him

Rom 4:7-8            “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered; 8 Blessed is the man to whom the LORD shall not impute sin.”

You are blessed! Why? Because your lawless deeds are forgiven, your sins are covered and sin is not imputed to you! What a Saviour!

Hbr 8:12            “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

God has already chosen to have mercy on your unrighteousness by forgiving you and not remembering your sin or lawless deeds. Then on top of that He graciously offered you the free gift of Christ’s Righteousness!

Hbr 10:17            then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

Then He adds, for the 6th time now, “I am not remembering your lawless deeds or sins.”

2Cr 5:17-19            Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

The way God reconciled you to Himself was to NOT count your sins against you. If He were counting your sins against you, you would not have been able to be  reconciled!

Psa 103:10            He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our iniquities.

And lastly my personal favorite! God HAS NOT done to any of us what our sins deserved. He has not thrown the book at us, He is not holding the law over our heads, He is not condemning or finding fault with us. He is shouting it all throughout His Word: “I have removed the record of your sin from My mind for all time! I love you with an everlasting love!”

How great, oh how great is our Dad!

Cornel

We are saved by grace through faith and it is not of ourselves (Eph 2:8-9). Since it’s not of ourselves, it’s not of ourselves. That means your behaviour has nothing to do with it. Simple, right! But what happens when a believer does use grace as a licence to sin?

As sons we have a covenant with our Father that is not based on our performance. All our sins have been forgiven and He is not keeping count of what we are doing wrong. If you don’t believe me, try believing Him. Read Isa 43:25, Jer 31:34, Heb 8:12, Heb 10:16-17, 2 Cor 5:19, Rom 4:7-8 to name but a few. Since He keeps repeating Himself, I believe He is pretty serious about the things He has said. So serious that He would rather have His Name be put to shame than violate His Word. (Ps 138:2) We need to realise how serious our Father takes covenants. There is actually a great example of this found in the Bible. Samson, one of the many men appointed by God to bring deliverance to Israel also had a covenant that was not based on his performance or behaviour.

The stipulation of Samson’s covenant with our Father was regarding his hair. As long as Samson didn’t cut his hair, he would be supernaturally strengthened by the Spirit of God to bring deliverance to Israel. But when we actually take a step back and look at Samson’s life, we see him using this covenant to do whatever he felt like doing. Let me give you few examples:

• After gambling and losing a bet with a bunch of Philistines at his wedding (to a Philistine woman), Samson went and murdered 30 men, took their clothes and possessions and used that to repay his debt. (Jdg 14:12-13, Jdg 14:19)

• When Samson’s father-in-law refused to let him see his wife, Samson went and caught 300 foxes and burned down the Philistines’ fields. This in turned caused the Philistines to murder his wife and father-in-law. (Jdg 15:1-6)

• When Samson’s own people arrested him for making their oppression under the Philistines worse instead of better through his actions, he broke free of his bonds and killed 1000 Philistines. (Jdg 15:10-15)

• Samson went to Gaza and slept with a prostitute. The Gazites plotted to kill him over this so he ripped their city gates out of the ground and carried them to the top of a hill. (Jdg 16:1-3)

• Finally, he lied about the source of his power 3 times before giving it up. (Jdg 16:6-15)

So Samson was a gambling, thieving, murdering, aggressive & anger-driven liar who slept around with prostitutes. Very holy… The interesting thing about all these instances is that the Spirit never left Samson. Even though his behaviour was far from moral, upright or holy. He remained Israel’s judge, empowered by the Spirit. Why is that? Because he never shaved his head. The covenant was never broken therefore the promise defined by the covenant was always in force. The moment Delilah had his head shaved, the covenant was broken and the Spirit left Samson.

He had his eyes gouged out and was thrown into prison. The man who was appointed to deliver Israel’s from the Philistines ended up to be their prisoner and was further humiliated by having to entertain the Philistines at a royal party. (Jdg 16:23-25). Through his own carefree actions, Samson robbed himself of fulfilling his destiny as Israel’s deliverer. Yet the moment his hair grew back the stipulation of the covenant was again met and the Spirit returned to him. He then famously pushed the two pillars over and killed more Philistines in his death than in his life.

The tragedy of Samson’s life teaches us that even though our covenant is not kept in place by our actions, sin is still the seed of destruction in our lives. Samson’s hair grew back; his eyes and destiny, not so much. We too risk our lives, relationships, health, reputations and destinies by using grace as a licence to do whatever we want.

Gal 6:7-8            Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. 8 For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. (NKJV)

Tts 2:11-13            For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. 12 It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope–the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. (NIV)

Grace teaches you to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions. It trains you to live self-controlled and upright. Not because that is what will uphold your covenant, but because God did not sacrifice His Son to save you from corruption only for you to stay in corruption. Saying ‘No’ to sin is exactly what grace empowers you to do. If you are using grace to say ‘Yes’ to sin, you are not being taught by the grace that brings salvation. There is no salvation in sin, there is only salvation from sin. You can be genuinely saved and call yourself free but fail to see that where you are in sin, you are still not free. Therefore freedom is not measured by not having any rules you can’t break, but in how little sin still has dominion over you.

Be Free!

Cornel

Ps. For more on this topic, see ‘Whose Grace Message Are You Listening To?‘

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Aesop was a Greek slave who lived lived around 600BC. He is renowned for telling pretty awesome fables, some of which are known and retold all over the world to this day. You might recognize some of his fables actually. Ever heard of ‘The Tortoise And The Hare’ or ‘The Ants And The Grasshopper’ or ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’? If you haven’t, what is it like living under that rock? Just kidding. I recently started reading his collection of fables again. The very first one was enough to get me thinking for a few days. It’s called, “The Wolf And The Lamb”

“A Wolf, meeting with a Lamb astray from the fold, resolved not to lay violent hands on him, but to find some plea to justify to the Lamb the Wolf’s right to eat him. He thus addressed him: ‘Sirrah, last year you grossly insulted me.’ ‘Indeed,’ bleated the Lamb in a mournful tone of voice, ‘I was not then born.’ Then said the Wolf, ‘You feed in my pasture.’ ‘No, good sir,’ replied the Lamb, ‘I have not yet tasted grass.’ Again said the Wolf, ‘You drink of my well.’ ‘No,’ exclaimed the Lamb, ‘I never yet drank water, for as yet my mother’s milk is both food and drink to me.’ Upon which the Wolf seized him and ate him up, saying, ‘Well! I won’t remain supperless, even though you refute every one of my imputations.” – The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.”

The devil is exactly like this wolf. He will try to justify his tyranny with a pretext. He will throw every excuse at you to justify his attack. Here are his most common pretexts:

1.  ”Because you have sinned, I have a right to do this to you.” You probably did sin, but that is no justification for the enemy taking anything from you. If my car is locked in my garage with a satellite tracking and steering lock on, a thief could break in and steal it. If on the other hand I leave my car in a shady part of town at night with the windows rolled down and the keys in the ignition, a thief can still come and steal it. In both scenarios my car was stolen. My careless actions made it much easier for the thief in the second case, but it in no ways justified the theft. Similarly, a rape is not justified because the clothes the woman did or didn’t wear. (John 10:10)

2.  ”It’s not me, it’s God punishing you.” Some people are smart enough to not fall for the first pretext above. Obviously the thief has no right. ‘But God has a right to punish sin, so maybe He has something to do with this.’ Yes, God does have a right to punish sin, but what the devil wants you to not realize is that God already punished sin on the cross, even the very sin you just committed minutes ago. God already judged and punished Jesus in your place. If not, what was the point of Jesus’ death? (John 5:22, John 5:24, John 12:47)

3.  ”Of course Jesus died for your sins, BUT…” Your internal alarm bells should sound whenever anybody tries to add a ‘but’ to the Gospel. The ‘but’ is usually followed by some sort of measure you have to live up to in order to make the benefits of Jesus’ death applicable to you. … BUT you need to fast. BUT you need to tithe. BUT you need to belong to our church. BUT you need to live in this manner. BUT you you you have to do do do this this and that. Basically forget about Jesus and all He did, look at what you still have to do, not to mention what you are not doing. Excuse me, but does Scripture not say we are saved by grace through faith AND IT IS NOT OF OURSELVES? (Eph 2:8-9) Does it not also say we received the Spirit by Faith and not by law? That miracles and power work amongst us through faith and not our self-righteousness? (Gal 3:1-3)

Preaching a but-gospel? Look at what Paul had to say about that:

2Cr 11:4 For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or [if] you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted–you may well put up with it!

If you preach a but-gospel, you will have to put up with a it. If you preach bondage, you will have to put up with bondage.

Gal 1:6-9 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, 7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.

I think Paul said it clearly enough. Don’t fall for the enemies pretexts. Understand what Jesus did for you. Understand the covenant you live under.

Cornel

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Over the course of the last couple of years in which we have preached a growing revelation of Grace, we have bumped heads with a fare share of people who really don’t like to hear the Good News for some reason. Granted God Himself said that Jesus, the cross and the gospel will be a stumbling block, an offense for many people. I always wondered why that is. Why do people get offended by good news? I believe it comes down to an identity crisis.

Many people, especially believers, who hear about grace for the first time react strongly against it because grace presents an identity crisis for them. For years they have been taught they aren’t worthy of God’s love, that they are sinful pitiful beings who need to throw themselves on the mercy of an angry judgmental God who utterly hates them for sinning and is about to punish and destroy them for being so useless. They have been shown what God likes and what He hates. Then they are constantly weighed in accordance to their ability to do what God likes and to refrain from doing what God hates to determine their worthiness of His love. “If you do what God likes, God will like you. If you do things that God hates, God will hate you too. God will love you more if you come to our church, give more than 10% of your hard earned money away and live as a morally upright person in the community.” Religion fed them with a formula of do good to become worthy, do bad and become unworthy and they have found their identity in that balance.

When Grace comes along and says what you do makes no difference to how much God loves you because He loves and favours you above all else, their whole identity structure comes tumbling down. This makes them angry because somewhere deep inside they realize they have been lied to. For years they have found their identity in the product of their constant efforts to appear pleasing to God and man. As long as they felt justified regarding their opinion of God’s opinion regarding them, which to them is determined by their good behaviour outweighing their bad behaviour, they were happy. They have found solace in thinking or believing their efforts are pleasing to God because of a bunch of rules they can keep. Unfortunately this does not constitute a relationship, nor does this in any way resemble Christianity as God intended it. The only thing that pleases God is Faith. Faith in Jesus to be more specific. Faith in your effort and ability to be righteous before Him is not pleasing faith, I don’t care how strongly you believe it is.

Your identity should be found in Jesus, not in your works. You have been saved by grace through faith. Not through your own works. Jesus would not have died for you if you weren’t worthy. He would not have died for you if He didn’t already love you. His love for you is unconditional. That means your effort to be pleasing or worthy of His love is not a condition for His love. No amount of religious good works or pious performance can make you worthy. You are worthy. You are deserving. Full Stop. You just have to read the Bible to see that. It is right there in black and white and sometimes red.

You have to decide whether God loves you or not. Once you have decided that He loves you, since it is abundantly clear from Scripture, you then base your identity in that. John got that. He always referred to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved. Jesus loved all the disciples equally, but John found his identity in that. He knew it was important. Once you know Jesus loves you no matter what, you will not try to impress Him with your efforts and abilities, but instead cease from your works and rest in His works. This is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us first. If grace offends you, go check to see where you are trying to make yourself more pleasing or worthy before God and just stop it because you are achieving exactly the opposite of what you are trying to accomplish in the first place.

Gal 2:16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.

If your identity is found in your works or your efforts, you are under law. I don’t care how much you plead, beg, confess, go to church, pray, do good or soak or tithe. By relying on your ability to make yourself pleasing or worthy, you removed Jesus from the gospel and it is no longer good news. You have set aside the grace of God and for you Christ might have well died in vain.

Gal 2:21 “I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”

Find your identity in Jesus, in His grace, love and favour that abounds toward you at all times. You are righteous because of His gift, not because of your effort.

Gal 3:2 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

You received The Spirit by Faith. You received salvation by faith. You received the Gift of Righteousness by Faith. Not works.

Col 2:6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him

You received by faith, now walk by faith. You didn’t receive by your own effort, so don’t walk by your own effort.

In Grace,

Cornel

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If you have to confess every sin in order for it to be forgiven, as some people interpret 1 Jhn 1:9 , how will you know what sin is so you can go confess it?

Rom 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. (NKJV)

Since the law provides the knowledge of sin, you have to go to the law to find out what is considered sin by God so you can go confess it to Him. Which parts of the law do you use to define right and wrong for yourself? Do you use only the 10 Commandments, or do you use the entire law? Well, Jesus considered Leviticus 19:18 , love your neighbour as yourself, to be the second greatest commandment and that specific law wasn’t even part of the 10 Commandments. Has God granted you permission to judge which of His laws are applicable to you and which are not? Did Jesus ever mention that He is only going to fulfill certain parts of the law and that those parts are now no longer applicable? No! In fact, quite the opposite actually.

Luke 16:17 “And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail.” (NKJV)

The law can’t be divided into applicable and not applicable sections for today. The law in its entirety will always remain intact. Heaven is more likely to pass away before even one law will fall away. That is why Paul wrote the following:

Gal 3:10 “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.’” (NKJV)

All things, meaning you can’t pick and choose. So, before you go confess next time, just make sure you go through the entire law to see what God considers sin and confess all those too. Don’t forget to also confess every good thing you didn’t do, because that is sin too (James 4:17). And while you are going through the entire law on this quest for knowledge of right and wrong in order to confess and repent, just think for a moment what got Adam & Eve into trouble in the first place? Eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. What did God say would happen if they ate of that tree? They would die, right? So while you are busy eating from the same tree by trying to get more knowledge about good and evil, don’t be surprised if the very ministry of death you are placing yourself under ends up killing you.

Or, look at the Greek of the only single verse in the entire New Covenant that instructs anybody to confess sins and you will see something very interesting:

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins (G266), He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins (G266) and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (G93).

G266: Hamartia: (Noun) To miss the mark, to transgress the law, collectively the complex or aggregate of sins committed either by a single person or by many.

The sin that needs to be confessed is not every single sin you commit because the word is a noun, not a verb. You are to confess that you have fallen short, that you have transgressed, that collectively you are as sinful as can be. You confess your state of sinfulness, not the action of every sin you commit. What happens then? God is faithful to forgive us our sins, same word same meaning, and cleanse you of all unrighteousness.

G93: Adikia: (Noun) Deeds of transgression, acts of unrighteousness.

Basically, confess your sinful state before God and He will forgive you of all your acts of unrighteousness. Now, the real whopper is that you have already done this. When? The day you got saved. You confessed your sinfulness, and the forgiveness God provided 2000 years before you even committed one act of sin was credited to you by grace. Now you either believe that and enter into rest from works of trying to earn forgiveness, or you keep asking God to forgive you over and over never really believing that He has already forgiven you. If you choose option 2, you better make sure you confess everything God considers sin, not just what you consider sin.

Does this mean we just forget about our sins, don’t deal with what we are struggling with and just live in any way we want? I will discuss this more in the next post. Stay tuned…

Grace to you!

Cornel

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Have you ever seen those teen movies where the often nerdy boy does everything he can to impress the popular cheerleader? He does her homework, her chores, washes her car, everything for the slight chance that she would show him affection but she never really does. Blinded by his desire for love he keeps doing more and more in a last ditch effort to be loved back, only to be frustrated more. He thinks by doing all these nice things she will love him back. No matter what he tries to do to build a relationship, his efforts and works are one-sided. Then one day he realized there is another girl who loves him already, even though he hasn’t done anything for her. He stops wasting time working so hard to gain the approval of someone who doesn’t love him and instead gets to know the girl who loved him first. Together they build a relationship, and in that relationship he is doing many of the same things he did for the cheerleader. But instead of doing them for love, he is now doing them because of love.

Living under the law is much like this boy trying to impress the cheerleader. The perfectness of the law creates in us this false image of God, a God who will only love based on what we can do for Him, if we’re lucky. We can’t help it, we know God is real, we have to love Him. I have to show Him I love Him! If I don’t, how will He know I love Him? If He doesn’t know I love Him, how will He love me back? If He doesn’t love me back, I have no reason for being! Why do we do this to ourselves? Good news is, we actually don’t. The law creates a distorted picture of God in our minds. Let me explain:

The image of God created by the law is not one of love, but one of justice. If a judge in our judicial system is presented with a case and realizes the defendant in the case is their child, he is not allowed to preside over the case because his love for his son will make his ruling bias and corrupt the justice that needs to be served. Once we realize that God loves us, we should actually realize that because He loves us, He has removed Himself from presiding over our case because He is bias towards us. Granted He can’t just get up and not make a ruling, because He is after all the only judge there is. If He doesn’t make a ruling, the law will make it by default, and then we are in even bigger trouble. But God did step down and allowed the law to make its unbiased ruling, but He stepped down on one condition: Whatever the ruling and punishment the law makes, that it be done to Him instead of us, so we could be free. The law is satisfied because justice gets served either way. Case closed. We on the other hand just realized this God of justice we tried to serve and impress all the time and failed, loved us so much He took our place. We realize He loved us all along. He loved us first, always have, always will!

We hopefully realize that even in our wildest dreams we couldn’t ever have done everything good enough to deserve His love. Even better, we hopefully realize that love earned and deserved is not love at all.  Love deserved is empty, fading, always looking for somebody else who is more deserving, somebody who is doing more to deserve it and doing it better than us. Love unconditional on the other hand is never fading because it depends not on what we did, do or will do. Love unconditional is just that: unconditional. You don’t earn love through anything you do and you don’t stay in love through continuing to do anything either. You stay in Love when you trust Love unconditionally.

Are you running around and wearing yourself out trying to impress a distorted image of God, or are you secure in expressing the love of Christ in you, Who is the hope of Glory? Jesus + anything = nothing. Jesus + nothing = everything. It’s not Jesus + good works. It’s not Jesus – bad works either. It’s just Jesus.

John 1:17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

The law, both sides of it, was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus. There is a difference between ‘given’ and ‘came’. One is an impersonal system, justice without love; the other IS A PERSON. Well, not just any person, God’s Son Himself and a relationship with Him. Where are you? Are you working for justice, or living in Love?

Thank you Jesus, You are just amazing!

Cornel

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Matt 18:23-35 is one of those passages that has been used for years to beat believers over the head to get them back under performance based legalism. I have been asked about this passage quite a lot, as many people have used it when they try to argue that you can lose your salvation and be thrown out of the kingdom if you don’t do certain things. Lets look at the passage and then just ask 3 simple questions…

Matthew 18:23-35 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. 31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. 35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” (ESV)

Whenever this story is read, people identify God as the king and themselves as the servant. God forgave you your sins just like the king cleared the servant’s debt. Then they say that if we don’t forgive, God won’t forgive us and deliver us to the ‘jailers’ or tormentors in another translation. Whenever we study a piece of scripture, it should always be looked at through what happened on the cross. The cross changed everything. It especially changed the way God relates to us, which is important in understanding this parable.  I said I would ask 3 simple questions, so here goes:

• Are you saved by mercy or grace?

There is a difference between mercy and grace. We are saved by grace through faith (Eph 2:8), not mercy. The king in the parable showed mercy by forgiving the servant’s debt out of pity. God didn’t save you out of pity, He saved you out of love. Big difference. If the king had shown the servant grace, he would have not only cleared the debt, he would have given the servant enough money to never be in debt again.

• Are you a servant or a king?

Surprisingly enough many believers would rather identify with being a servant instead of being a king. The scripture is clear that Jesus no longer considers us servants; we are friends, brothers, kings and priests. As He is, so are we in this world (1 John 4:17). So in this story it would be more accurate if you identified yourself with the king. You are in a position to be merciful, to see the debts people have and to clear it.

• Does God relate to you based on your works or His Son’s works?

Since we are now the righteousness of God in Christ by faith, God relates to us based on Jesus’ righteousness, or the degree to which Jesus can do right. He no longer looks at our unworthiness, because through the atoning blood of Jesus, we have been made forever worthy. Whenever we think God would ignore the blood of His Son and again look at our own righteous efforts, we are saying Jesus’ blood was not enough.

So please don’t buy into this legalistic manipulation trap that God is going to hand you over to tormentors if you don’t forgive others because if He did, He would be guilty of murdering Jesus. “But Cornel, this Jesus talking about the Kingdom?” Yes, I know. And he told this story before He went to the cross. God’s kingdom didn’t start at the cross. His kingdom has always been there. Before the cross the relationship we had to the kingdom was based on the old covenant performance based laws. Do good, get good. Do bad, get bad. After the cross the relationship we have to the kingdom is based on the finished works of Christ. If you relate to God based on the law, then you are on your own, you have no mediator and He would have to keep His word and punish sin. But if you are saved, you relate to God through Christ, your Mediator, and God again would keep His word that He would not treat you according to your sins because He has punished His Son in your stead.

So the choice is yours: Do you want God to relate to you based on your righteous ability (Old Covenant), or Christ’s righteous ability (New Covenant)? You can’t have both because old and new don’t mix.

Grace to you all!

Cornel

Read more about Cornel’s book “So You Think Your Mind Is Renewed?” here!

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Since I started preaching / writing / blogging about grace, I have been accused of many things and called by many not so nice names. I have been told what I am preaching is going to cause people to go out and live in sin because I preach ‘Irresistible Grace’. Irresistible grace means that it doesn’t matter what a believer does or how moral they live since the grace that saved them is NOT based on their right doing or lack thereof. We all know the famous question in Romans: “Should we sin more so grace could increase?” (Rom 6:1). Grace means favour. Where sin abounds, Divine Favour abounds MUCH more. In other words, the more you sin, the more grace there is to save you. To those people it sounded like Paul was saying favour from God is linked to sin instead of righteousness. If grace is linked to sin, should we keep on sinning to increase the favour of God in our lives? What was Paul’s answer? “God forbid.” Why then would they ask this? Well, who would be easier for you to forgive: Your kid who stole $10 to by himself some ice cream, or the stranger who sodomized and molested him behind the ice cream shop? It would seem that you would need much more grace to forgive the stranger (the pedophile) then your son (the thief). But to God there is no difference. Sin is wrong, no matter how ‘big’ or ‘small’ but His grace covers a multitude of sins. His grace is bigger than the biggest sin. That is why there is salvation for every person who wants it.

Now when you preach salvation by grace and not by works, there are actually 2 components to works. Good works and bad works. You are saved by grace, not because the amount of good works you did outweighed the amount of bad works you did. Both good and bad works were taken out of the salvation equation. It is easy to believe God doesn’t look at our good deeds, but instead looks at Jesus’ obedience on our behalf. It is not so easy to believe that God doesn’t regard our bad works or sins either. And if He doesn’t look at our sins, do we then have a license to do whatever we want? A license to sin? Only people who think of grace in a religious mindset will come to that conclusion. The religious mindset is this: If my good works outweigh the bad ones, the bad works get canceled. Believing in grace is not something good you do to outweigh the bad things in your life. If you think of grace in that way, you unfortunately have not heard what Grace has to say. If the voice of grace you listen to tells you it is ok to sin, then the grace you are listening to is the grace of the world, not the Grace of God. The world will tell you sin is ok. “You have favour to do whatever you want, be your own person, make your own choices, feel whatever you want to feel, experience whatever you desire.” The anti-grace of the world is not the opposite of the true grace of God, it’s only a pseudo-grace, a wolf in sheep’s clothing if you will. Like rat poison which is 99% good rat food and 1% poison, worldly grace is 99% good. It’s that 1% of deception that steals, kills and destroys. What is the difference between worldly grace and God’s Grace? For me the biggest difference is Independence vs. Dependence. Worldly grace gives you favour to become independent, to be in charge of your own life. Because you are in charge you can do whatever you want. You can even decide what is good and what is evil. God’s Grace on the other hand is an abandonment of independence and the pursuit of dependence upon Him, to let Him decide what is good for you, to make decisions for you, to let Him take charge of your life, to let Him be your Lord.

When Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were embracing worldly grace. You eat of that same tree whenever you say, “I will decide what is good and what is evil.” If you decide adultery is not evil, you will be able to do it and not have any issues because you decided it was good. Divorce and broken homes therefore become part of life. It is born out of what the world has decided is not evil. I heard an advertisement for a “Divorce Expo” today. The world apparently thinks divorce is so good, it needs to be celebrated and promoted. The world will always promote and celebrate sin and independence. So when any person teaches you it is ok to sin, they are not teaching you God’s grace, they are telling you to eat of the tree of good and evil. “Do whatever you want, you will be like God.” God in His infinite wisdom and ability to see the beginning and the end knows exactly what the consequences of all actions are. He also knows better than any other being what is good and what is evil. If we trust Him to make decisions for us, we will never have to go down the path that leads to destruction. When God says, “That is evil, have nothing to do with it” it is not because He will love us more if we obey them, but because He knows if we do mingle with evil, we are in danger of being destroyed. Because of His love for you, He doesn’t want you to be destroyed. You don’t put a fence around a swimming pool because you think swimming is evil, you do it so your kids don’t drown. If they go there by themselves, independent of you, chances are good they might drown. But when they go there under your supervision, with dependence on you, they can enjoy it without worry because you are there.

So which grace are you listening too? It is easy to check. If you are in sin, you are listening to worldly grace. If you are struggling with sin, trying to stop but never succeeding, you are also listening to worldly grace. (You are failing because you are trying to stop by yourself, independent of God.) If you are struggling less and less with sin and seeing victory, freedom and restoration, you are listening to God’s grace.  God grace says this: “Sin is not something you have to overcome. My Son overcame it already. Trust Him and be dependent on Him, follow in His Way and you will live in His victory.” Worldly grace says this: “Sin is something you need to overcome. You have to get out of sin and stay out of sin before God will favour you. You have to get the victory, you have to find a way yourself. But if you don’t want to get out, that is ok too. Follow your way. Your way is right if you decide it is.”

Titus 2:11-15 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. 12 It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope — the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. 15 These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. (NIV)

If the grace you are listening to is not teaching or empowering you to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, you are not listening to the grace that brings salvation. If the grace you are listening to is not producing eagerness to do what is good, it is not God’s grace you are listening too. If this is you and you think you have been deceived by worldly grace, just turn and listen to what God’s Grace has to say. There is no condemnation, just turn and listen. You will hear, “Come, all you who are burdened and heavy laden. Come, and I will give you rest.” Independence of God is a very heavy burden. So heavy, you will never reach your destination carrying it. Let go. Surrender. Ask God to help you. Become dependent on Him.

James 4:6-7 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”  7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (NIV)

You can’t be humble and independent of God at the same time. Giving up your independence is the first step toward humility. The moment you give it up (yes, you have to give it up. God doesn’t take it away.) you become humble. Since you are humble, God no longer resists you and instead you receive grace and favour. When you resist the devil, the worldly passions or the sin in your life through independence, they will not flee from you. But when you submit to God, give up your independence and depend on Him for your strength, they will flee from you. There is no grace to commit sin. You do not have favour with God to sin. You have favour to get out of sin. The grace that makes it ok to sin, is not God’s Grace. God’s grace is irresistible. When you listen to it, you will not be able to resist changing from glory to glory.

“Jesus, I give up my independence entirely. I want to live dependent on You alone. You know far better what is good for me. I don’t want to be the judge of good and evil.  I am pleased and happy with what you decide is good and what is not. Be my Lord and show me where I need to surrender my independence, for it is there where I am still not under your Lordship. I reject the grace of this world that tells me to do what I want. I accept your grace by faith that shows me what you want for me, through me and with me. Thank you for destroying the power of sin and setting me free to live in you. Thank You for Your saving grace that teaches me to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions. In Jesus Name, sin (name your sin), I say to you NO! Worldly passions, NO! Ungodliness, NO! I choose to give up my independence and to die to self. I am dead to what I want. I am now alive to what God wants. Godly passions: Yes! Holiness: Yes! Righteousness: Yes! Freedom: Yes! Peace: Yes! Joy: Yes! Yes Yes YES and AMEN!”

Thank You Jesus!

Cornel

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I often hear people asking God to give them boldness. I think if those people knew what boldness actually was, they would stop asking for it. Boldness is nothing other than being entirely sure about something. It is confidence gained by knowing that something is true and refusing to back off from that truth. If I ask you, “What is your name?” You can immediately, without any hesitation or having to think twice, answer me and tell me your name. Why? Because you know for a fact, what your name is. Now after you tell me your name, I can say you are lying because your name is actually Fred. Will you believe me and go, “Oh, sorry, you’re right. Don’t know what I was thinking!” NO! You would correct me immediately. If I persist in telling you that you are a lair and that your name is Fred, you will eventually get angry and fed up to the point where you would either punch me or show me your driver’s license.

When somebody mispronounces your name, or misspells it, the first thing you usually do is stop right there and correct them. Why? Because otherwise, it is not you. The mispronounced or misspelled name is not you, because it does not represent who you are. Boldness in terms of speaking and doing God’s word is nothing more than that. When you know for a fact that what you are speaking is truth, you won’t have a problem speaking it. And when you hear something contrary to that truth, you will speak up and correct it. But before you speak up and correct, you need to know the truth. In terms of who you are, there is no better picture than the one reflected in Scripture. It tells you exactly who you are and what you can do. But you won’t be or do if you are not convinced. That is why people pray for boldness. They want God to convince them that His Word is true. Once they know for a fact it is true, they would have boldness to stand on it with everything they have.

The first step to get boldness is in making a conscious decision that either you believe the Word of God, or you don’t. If you chose to believe the Word of God, it becomes the basis of truth in your life. You have to look at everything through this truth. You have to look at your experience through truth, and not use your experience to look at what is truth and what is not. When the Word of God tells me, “By His stripes we were healed” then that is truth. When I am sick, then my sickness is not in line with truth even though it is a fact. It is not mind over matter either. It is more like gravity and flight. Gravity doesn’t cease to exist when a plane takes off, but one reality has been superseded by a higher truth. When you actually believe the Word of God, then the faith you place in it supersedes the world you live in.
The Word of God supersedes sin, sickness, disease, poverty, lack, brokenness, sorrow, inability, guilt, shame, condemnation and more by grace through faith. Once you believe it, you will start superseding whatever mountain is in your way. When your experience seemingly contradicts truth, all you need to do is to find out what the Word of God says about that situation, and believe it to be true. Once you know what God said about you or your situation, you will automatically have boldness. The only time you don’t have boldness towards something is when there is a choice involved and you don’t know which choice is true concerning you.

2 Cor 5:5-7 Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. 6 So we are ALWAYS CONFIDENT, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. 7 FOR WE WALK BY FAITH, NOT BY SIGHT. (NKJV)

You will always have confidence and boldness as long as you live by faith. If you stop living by faith or stop believing the Word of God, then your experiences will once again precede the higher truth. Then your plane will land and gravity will keep you on the ground again. You can ask for as much boldness as you like, but the only thing that will cause you to have boldness is faith in Christ. Lacking boldness is just a symptom of lacking faith. Boldness cannot be given to compensate a lack of faith. You will be bold to the degree that you have faith in Jesus and His Word, and the free gift of righteousness, which is the Gospel. So next time you want to ask for boldness, rather just decide what truth is and stick with it!

Grace and Peace to you all!

Cornel Marais

Click here to read a preview of Cornel’s new book, “So You Think Your Mind Is Renewed?” If you’re tired of religion, legalism and the traditions of man, this book will be a great starting block for you to starting living the life you were destined to live in Christ!

I have been asked “Why Jesus?” by many people before, and this my “short” answer.

I believe God created man to have somebody He could have a relationship with and pour out His love upon. God has this desire to share Himself with what and who He created. It’s basically the same kind of reason I suppose as you wanting to have a pet dog or cat, or even your own child. Now we aren’t God’s pets, don’t hear what I am not saying. But just like we might have an intense longing to care for another life, so God had an intense desire to care for the lives He created. That is why He created us in the first place.

When dealing with any kind of relationship between two or more parties, there is always an agreement of some sort. Take a marriage for example. The vows you take when entering into a marital relationship with somebody are nothing more than stipulations governing the conditions of the relationship. You also might have signed a contract with an employer where they agree to give you X amount of money in exchange for a certain amount of work you do. The breaking of a contract or agreement usually has repercussions. If a husband breaks the marriage agreement, his wife divorces him. If you break your job-contract, you lose your job. In other words, there is no longer any relationship. In the same way, when God relates to man, there is also an agreement that is entered into. This isn’t just any agreement, it’s more than that. The kind of agreement God makes is called a covenant. A covenant is a solemn agreement and is different from an average contract because the terms of a covenant are life-long. There are no fixed-term covenants. The only way to get out of a covenant is for one, or both parties to die. Now God does not enter into a relationship with man outside of covenant, so if you want to have a relationship with God, you need to understand the covenants He made with man.

If you have ever paged through a Bible, you would have noticed that it has two main sections. One is called the Old Testament and the other is called the New Testament. The word testament is the same word for covenant. So those 2 sections can also be seen as the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. The Old Covenant is what is generally referred to as the Mosaic Law Covenant, or the Law of Moses. You might better know them as the 10 Commandments. All those “Thou-shalt-nots.” This covenant of law was introduced to man as a way to have a relationship with God. The reason being is that the basis of any relationship with God is always righteousness. There is much to say about this word, but the dictionary defines it as the ability to act right. God has the ability to always at all times act right, and therefore He has perfect righteousness. For a man to relate to God, he needs to also have righteousness. So in this law covenant, man had try and copy God by trying to do what God has determined to be right. If you take the 10 commandments and say that each one for example carries 10% worth of righteousness, then the more law you keep, the more righteous you become. The catch is that you need to have the same level of righteousness as God in order to relate to Him. Only keeping all the laws perfectly would give you enough righteousness. If you lie, your righteousness drops from 100 to 90%. If you also steal, it drops further to 80% and so on. Since dropping below 100% is seen as breaking the law covenant, you are now unable to have a relationship with God. Naturally the repercussions stated at the inception of the covenant now have to be executed. In the case of the Law Covenant, this means death. Even keeping the law 99.99% right still meant you fell short and broke the covenant. The actions that cause a covenant to be broken, are called sins.

Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death (NKJV)

This is where the whole judgment and punishment of God story comes in. Since God always does right, He has to enforce the punishment for sin, otherwise He Himself wouldn’t be acting right anymore. But this is not something that God wanted to do. He hated the very thought of having to keep that side of the law covenant. But failure to punish people for breaking the covenant would mean God is not upholding the stipulations that demand the punishment either, meaning God is now breaking the covenant too, and He would need to put Himself to death for breaking the covenant. Since He can’t do that, He had to find a way to punish sin without having to kill the people. Enter the bulls and goats…

God then told the people that they could sacrifice animals in exchange for their lives. The animals were put to death for the sins the people committed. So the sins were punished, and the relationship was restored. But since humans were the pinnacle of natural creation, the life of an animal just does not compare to the life of a human. That is still true today. If I shoot a cow, nobody has a problem. But if I shoot a human, I get locked up for life and might even be put to death myself. In the same way, the animal sacrifices were never good enough to completely restore the relationship. The people had to continually sacrifice animals year after year after year to calm down the wrath of God. The only life that could be sacrificed to stop the wrath of God completely and forever, was the only life that was more valuable than the lives of all mankind put together. And that was God’s own life. Since God is immortal, the covenant could never be ended through death on His side, but that was still the only way to completely end the law covenant forever.

But God couldn’t just give up His life for us because His life was also not a human life. To stop the punishment for man’s sin, a human had to be put to death. So God allowed His Spirit to conceive a child with a human woman, and so doing birthed His own Son into creation, into man’s side of the law covenant. This human form of God’s life is the person we call Jesus. He is both 100% man and 100% God at the same time. Jesus lived a perfect sinless life, fully obeying every stipulation of the relationship covenant between God and man. He therefore had 100% righteousness, and because of that He was able to enjoy the benefits of a relationship with God completely. All the love God had to give was finally able to be released in all its fullness, splendor and glory. This also meant that Jesus’ life was now the only life that could be sacrificed to forever end the punishment required by the law covenant. Jesus willfully took that burden upon His shoulders. In that one willful act of sacrifice, Jesus took the punishment for all the sin of the entire human race upon Himself and died. Since He perfectly kept the stipulations of the covenant, including the required punishment, Jesus fulfilled the law covenant and thereby enabled man’s relationship with God to be restored back to one of harmony and peace, the same way it was before the first sin was ever committed.

Another thing you need to know about covenants, is how they are made. A covenant was made by two people coming together and killing an animal. They would usually drain the blood and proceed to cut the animal in two halves and pour out the blood on the ground in between the two halves. Then they would agree on the stipulations of the covenant, and together walk through the blood, swearing an oath that if either party would break the covenant, they would have to pay with their life. The reason why I am telling you this is because if you remember earlier I told you that the Bible has two parts. Old and New, two covenants. We already looked at the old law covenant and how it came to an end when Jesus died, and that man was now able to have a relationship with God. But also remember that God cannot have a relationship with man without a covenant. So a New Covenant was made where in man could be rightly related to God.

This covenant was cut at the same time that Jesus’ body was put through the torture of being flogged and crucified. Just like the animal was slain to establish a covenant, Jesus Himself became the new blood-cut covenant that would ultimately govern the relationship between God and Man. The first, or old covenant was made between God and man. This second, or new covenant, was not made between God and man. This Covenant was cut between God the Father and God the Son. The stipulations were that the righteousness Jesus had attained through His sinless life, and all the benefits and blessings associated with that, would be given as a free gift to mankind, so that they would always have the righteousness needed to have a relationship with God. The only condition to receive this wonderful free gift is for man to place their faith in Jesus. Every man that comes to the knowledge of what happened on that cross, is faced with a choice. They can either keep trying to live 100% righteous by their own effort, or decide to place their faith in Jesus, which basically means to acknowledge that He lived a sinless life as God in human form and took the punishment for our sins freely and willfully, in order that we can be bought out of the original covenant that required us to be put to death for our sins. In doing so, every man that places their faith in Jesus, receives a divine exchange. Their sinfulness gets included in the sacrificial death of Jesus, and Jesus’ own perfect righteousness is freely given to them. This is the only way a person can have their relationship with God restored. That is why Jesus said in

John 14:6 “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. (NKJV)

Unlike the Old Covenant with its many rules and regulations, the New Covenant doesn’t have any requirements or stipulations that man has to keep, except for one: Faith. As soon as you decide to take your faith and place it in Jesus, you fully and completely obey all the stipulations of the New Covenant. In other words, you are now entitled to all the blessings of having a harmonious, peaceful relationship with God, which is life and life abundant. All the negative effects of not being in relationship with God are taken away forever. When God made this New Covenant with Jesus, the conditions He swore to were to never again remember the sins of man, to never again punish any person for not obeying the regulations of the old covenant, and to always treat man the way He always wanted to, with unconditional love and affection. This is great because it means no matter what we do or don’t do, the moment we place our faith in Christ, God gets set free in a sense of having to treat us how we deserve (punishment for our sin) and is enabled to treat us like He wants to (loving-kindness). We are totally set free from the debt of punishment, guilt and condemnation of breaking the original covenant in the first place. We are now able to live in complete harmony with God forever, no matter what sins we have committed before, still do, or are going to do in the future. Your ability to do right is no longer the basis of the righteousness needed to relate with God. Jesus’ righteousness is that basis now. Through Jesus, God has found a way to remove man’s ability to fall out of relationship with Him, and also to stand before God as completely righteous all the time.

It doesn’t matter what sin you have committed, God has already dealt with it. You don’t even have to come and grovel or ask for forgiveness. All you have to do is acknowledge Jesus as the person who carried your punishment for you, and accept the fact that you no longer have to live by the regulations of the first law covenant. If that makes sense to you and you believe that in your heart that it is true, then confess it out loud with your mouth. You can say something like: “Jesus, I acknowledge that in order for me to know God the Father, and to have a relationship with Him, I need a Saviour. I know that I have sinned and that my relationship with God has been broken because of that. Today I accept your free gift of righteousness, and I make you my Lord and Saviour. Your sacrifice on the cross paid my debt of sin in full. Please come live in me, and restore my relationship with God. Because you gave Your life for me, I now give my entire life to you. Let Your Holy Spirit come live in me, revealing to me the depths of the love contained in this restored relationship. Thank you for doing everything You did to save me. Let me daily walk in Your Presence and enjoy life the way you wanted me to enjoy it: With You!”

In Grace,

Cornel Marais

Click here to read a preview of Cornel’s new book, “So You Think Your Mind Is Renewed?” If you’re tired of religion, legalism and the traditions of man, this book will be a great starting block for you to starting living the life you were destined to live in Christ!