All Supplying Grace Of God

Grace through faith!

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,

9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. - Ephesians 2:8-9

By Grace!

even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved- - Ephesians 2:5

By His Mercy!

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,

5 who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,

7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith-more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire-may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory,

9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. - 1 Peter 1:3-9

Promise resting on grace!

16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring-not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,

17 as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations"-in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. - Romans 4:16-17

Confidence through Christ!

3 And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God.

5 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God,

6 who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. - 2 Corinthians 3:3-6

Christ, the living Water!

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)

10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."

11 The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?

12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock."

13 Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,

14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." - John 4:9-14

Hope!

1 Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,

2 and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

3 And this we will do if God permits.

4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit,

5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,

6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.

7 For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God.

8 But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.

9 Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things-things that belong to salvation.

10 For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.

11 And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end,

12 so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. - Hebrews 6:1-12

Listen to these words.
They bring eternal life found in Christ alone!
Sin brings death! 
Repent-turn from sin-follow Christ!!  

Do you believe like the devil?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. Acts 16:31

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

A Christian is not somebody who merely believes that Christ died for his sins. The devil believes that. A Christian is somebody who has repented of his sins and invited Christ into his heart to be his Savior and Lord.

You can intellectually believe that an airplane can fly, but in order to fly you must try out its wings. In the same way, when you give your heart to Jesus Christ, He takes control of your life and begins to make you into the person He wants you to be.

Your life doesn’t have to be absolutely perfect for you to go to heaven. At the moment you trust Christ as your personal Savior, you are eternally saved, eternally secure, and God begins to work on you.

ACTION POINT:

Isn’t it wonderful to know you are saved? Now, spread the word of that assurance to a neighbor today.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Something to Boast About

By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8–9)

The New Testament correlates faith and grace to make sure that we do not boast in what grace alone achieves.

One of the most familiar examples is Ephesians 2:8. By grace, through faith. There’s the correlation that guards the freedom of grace. By grace, through faith.

Faith is the act of our soul that turns away from our own insufficiency to the free and all-sufficient resources of God. Faith focuses on the freedom of God to dispense grace to the unworthy. It banks on the bounty of God.

Therefore faith, by its very nature, nullifies boasting and fits with grace. Wherever faith looks, it sees grace behind every praiseworthy act. So it cannot boast, except in the Lord. The author of grace.

So Paul, after saying that salvation is by grace through faith, says, “And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9). Faith cannot boast in human goodness or competence or wisdom, because faith focuses on the free, all-supplying grace of God. Whatever goodness faith sees, it sees as the fruit of grace.

When it looks at our “wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,” it says, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:30–31).

John Piper 

When God Goes Against His Will

But they would not listen to the voice of their father, for it was the will of the Lord to put them to death. (1 Samuel 2:25)

The sons of Eli the priest would not obey their father when he rebuked them for their sin. There are three implications of this text for our lives.

1) It is possible to sin so long and so grievously that the Lord will not grant repentance.

That is why Paul said that after all our pleading and teaching, “God may perhaps grant them repentance” — not, “will grant them repentance” (2 Timothy 2:25). There is a “too late” in the life of sin. As it says of Esau in Hebrews 12:17, “He found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.” He was forsaken; he could not repent.

This does not mean that those who truly repent even after a whole lifetime of sinning cannot be saved. They certainly can be, and will be! God is staggeringly merciful. Remember the thief on the cross. Jesus said to him, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).

2) Sometimes God does not permit a sinning person to do what is right.

“But they would not listen to the voice of their father, for it was the will of the Lord to put them to death.” Listening to the voice of their father was the right thing to do. But they would not. Why? “For it was the will of the Lord to put them to death.”

The reason given for why they did not obey their father was that God had other purposes for them, and had given them up to sinning and death. This shows that there are times when the will of God’s decree is different from the revealed will of God’s command.

3) Sometimes our prayers for God’s revealed will to be done will not be done because God has decreed something different for holy and wise purposes.

I suppose that Eli prayed for his sons to be changed. That is how he should have prayed. But God had decreed that Hophni and Phinehas not obey, but rather be slain.

When something like this happens (which we do not ordinarily know ahead of time) while we are crying out to God for change, the answer of God is not: “I don’t love you.” Rather the answer is: “I have wise and holy purposes in not overcoming this sin and not granting repentance. You do not see these purposes now. Trust me. I know what I am doing. I love you.”

John Piper 

The social gospel? Or the other one?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst. John 6:35

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Sometimes people in large churches get a lot of grief from the secular world. 

Because of the expense of building and maintaining the church, I’ve heard, “Why didn’t they take that money and feed the poor?”

Here’s my answer: “People need Jesus.” The social gospel thinks all people really need is having their physical needs met. If I had enough money to buy everyone on earth a meal, in several hours they’d all be hungry again.

Of course there’s nothing wrong with feeding the poor. We ought to do that. But the social gospel puts the emphasis on what’s temporary. The true gospel emphasizes what is eternal. Folks need more than soup and soap, they need salvation. Do we offer one or the other—or both?

ACTION POINT:

Think about ways you can get involved with the need to feed, clothe, and house the homeless. Sponsor a needy child in a third-world nation. Then find with both the open door to feed them with the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Payout for Patience

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive.” (Genesis 50:20)

The story of Joseph in Genesis 37–50 is a great lesson in why we should have faith in the sovereign, future grace of God.

Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers, which must have tested his patience tremendously. But he is given a good job in Potiphar’s house in Egypt. Then, when he is acting uprightly in the unplanned place of obedience, Potiphar’s wife lies about his integrity and has him thrown into prison — another great trial to his patience.

But again things turn for the better, and the prison keeper gives him responsibility and respect. But just when he thinks he is about to get a reprieve from Pharaoh’s cupbearer, whose dream he interpreted, the cupbearer forgets him for two more years. Another painful trial to his patience.

Finally, the meaning of all these detours and delays becomes clear. Joseph is raised up to be the leader of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh. He ends up saving from starvation the very brothers who sold him into slavery. Joseph says to his long-estranged brothers, “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. . . . As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive” (Genesis 45:7; 50:20).

What would have been the key to patience for Joseph during all those long years of exile and abuse? The answer is: faith in God’s sovereign, future grace — the sovereign grace of God to turn the unplanned place and the unplanned pace into the happiest ending imaginable.

That’s the key to our patience as well. Do we believe that God is working for us in the strangest and most painful turns of our lives?

John Piper 

Looking at life through new lenses

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

People join churches today with wrong expectations. They think church membership guarantees blessings and no burdens. Some think God is just a heavenly cafeteria, and if it doesn’t work out as they wish, they say, “Well, it’s not paying off! I thought if I gave my heart to Jesus, then He would supply everything I want. I’d have no more worries.”

People fall away because their expectations are not met. Let me tell you what real faith is. Real faith is not just receiving from God the things you want. Real faith is accepting from God the things He gives.

ACTION POINT:

How are your spiritual glasses? Are you looking at life with the eyes of the Lord? And trusting that He will provide, not necessarily what you want, but what you need?

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers