Sun, Jun 18th - 8:31AM

Under Which Law?

UNDER WHICH LAW?

by Rev. Lynn Fowler

Some years ago when I ministered in Vanuatu, I learned something of the interesting history of that small island nation. For many years Vanuatu, then known as the New Hebrides, was jointly governed by the French and English under a system known as the Condominium. The locals refer to the period as "the Pandemonium", and the nic-name fits very well. Two totally different systems of government existed side by side, French and English. When you arrived in the country, if you came from one of the British Commonwealth nations, you came under English law, but if you came from a French dominion, you came under French law. If you came from neither, they you had to choose under which law you would be governed (the story was that French law was harsher, but their prisoners received better food!) Even ten years ago, some areas had English schools and some French, and some unfortunate students could end up going to one for their primary education and the other for secondary!

We also must chose under which law we will live. However, the laws between which we must choose are not the arbitrary decisions of a human government, but the natural outworking of the spiritual realities of our lives. Both are laws of cause-and-effect, and the results of their operation in our lives are the direct opposite of each other.

Paul writes that in Christ the law of the Spirit of Life has set us free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2). Before we came to Christ we did not have any choice. We were "dead in sin", the only law available to us was the law of sin and death. From the beginning, God made it clear that sin would produce death: "in the day that you eat of it (the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) you will surely die." (Gen. 2:17) Sin produces death, but that is only the beginning, for death also produces sin. This kind of death is spiritual death; it means our spirits are cut off from the source of life, the Holy Spirit. Since the source of life is also the source of righteousness, this means that those who are dead in sin cannot be righteous before God. Under the law of sin and death we were trapped in a downward spiral of sin producing death, and death producing more sin.

When we came to Christ, we were given another option: we were brought under the law of the Spirit of Life. Our human spirits were restored to life, and reconnected to the Holy Spirit. Now we can plug into His life, which produces righteousness. Instead of the old downward spiral, we can step into a new upward spiral, in which His life works righteousness in us, and His righteousness brings increasing levels of life.

The catch is, we still have a choice. Just as the person arriving in the New Hebrides under the Condominium had to decide whether to be governed by French or English law, we too must decide which law will govern us. We can choose to continue under the old law, choosing to sin and bringing death upon ourselves as we do so; or we can choose to live by the law of the spirit of life, operating out of our renewed spirits instead of our old soul life, and growing daily in life and righteousness.

Whichever we choose, we will see the natural outworking of it in our lives. We cannot choose sin without also choosing the consequences of sin. The two are inextricably tied together. Sin will always pull us away from God, lessening our ability to receive from His life. It also removes us from God's protection, making us easy targets for the devil's attacks.

Likewise we cannot choose to be led by the Spirit of God without finding ourselves drawn closer to God, and being changed to be more and more like Jesus.

Under which law do you choose to live?

© Lynn Fowler 2006

Rev. Lynn Fowler is the Founder and International Director of Glory to the King Ministries International and head of Glory to the King Apostolic Network.

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Sun, Jun 4th - 1:15AM

More Than a Blind Eye

As I have observed the Church over the years, it seems to me that most Christians have at best a very poor grasp of the concept of grace.

There are those who ignore grace altogether, believing that the only way they are ever going to make it to heaven is if they somehow manage to stay on the straight-and-narrow, and along the way do enough good works to earn them plenty of brownie points. Of course, in a Biblical sense, such people are not really Christians at all. They follow a philosophy or a religion, but they have never really embraced and surrendered to the Person, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible makes it very clear that all our "goodness" and "good works" will add up to nothing when we stand before God, if we do not stand cleansed and forgiven through the shed blood of Jesus. Salvation is by grace, it is a gift. We cannot earn grace, we do not deserve it, and nothing we can ever do will stand in place of it.

Others see grace as merely God turning a blind eye to our sin, like a kind of benevolent grandfather who simply pats us on the head and smiles benignly when we do wrong. They think that the fact that they can never deserve grace by "being good" excuses them from being good, and that they can never earn it by good works exempts them from good works. No matter what they do, they reason, God's grace will still be extended to them.

This is as wrong a concept of grace as those have who ignore it. It is promoted by the standard Evangelical definition of grace as "God's unmerited favor." Whilst certainly not untrue, that definition is like defining a Lambourgini as "a car." It doesn't even come close to telling it all.

The first use of the word "grace" (Greek "charis") in the New Testament is in Luke 2:40, where it says that the grace of God was on the boy Jesus. Now Jesus never sinned, so He did not need the Father to turn a blind eye to anything that He had done. Since He was equal with the Father in every way, it also could not be said that He did not merit the Father's favor. In fact, at His baptism 18 years later the Father publicly declared that He was well pleased with Him.

The grace that was on Jesus, then, was something quite different. From the context, it is obviously referring to something of God's character: Jesus was, in every way, a true representation of the Father. Since exactly the same word is used for grace when it refers to us, it must have for us the same connotation: grace imparts to us something of the character of God. Unlike Jesus, of course, we are not deserving of that impartation. In a different way, it is God's unmerited favor to us.

Grace – still the same word – is seen in another aspect in Acts 4:33. After the release of Peter and John from prison, the church prayed powerfully for their ongoing work and witness, and the Scripture declares, "With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all." Again, it is not talking about the grace of seeing their sins forgiven, but of power and influence in their ministry.

Paul, in Romans 1:5, speaks of himself as receiving "grace (still the same word) and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith." Paul was not speaking of his salvation, but of his ministry. He recognized that his call to the office of apostle was not because of his goodness or anything he had done, but by God's unmerited favor. More than that, he understood that he could never fulfill the requirements of that office in his own strength, but was totally dependent upon the power and anointing of God's Spirit.

It would take a whole book – perhaps several – to fully look into the various aspects of grace. Since we don't have that kind of time or space available right now, I would simply like to suggest a new definition for your consideration: "God's mighty power working in you to achieve that which you do not deserve and which you could not achieve by yourself." In other words, grace is God's ability: God's ability to take hold by faith on the merits of Jesus' death on your behalf. God's ability to live in a way that is pleasing to Him. God's ability to fulfill whatever works He has called you to do. God's ability to forgive others as He has forgiven you. God's ability to stand strong in whatever temptations, difficulties or persecutions come against you. God's ability, every breath, every heart beat, every moment.

When we understand grace this way, we see why it can never be just a "blind eye" to sin. Grace is a package deal. We cannot accept grace to take hold of salvation, without also accepting grace to live a godly life. We cannot accept grace for our own forgiveness without accepting grace for the forgiveness of those who offend us. If we reject one part of the package, we automatically reject the whole package.

Through the death of Jesus, God has made His grace freely available to every one of us. The only question that remains is, will we accept it?

© Lynn Fowler 2006.

Rev. Lynn Fowler is the Founder and International Director of Glory to the King Ministries International and head of Glory to the King Apostolic Network.

Subscribe to Glory Magazine, the official magazine of GTKMI. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/glorymagazine

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