In John 14:9 (Amplified) Jesus said, "Have I been with you for so long a time, and you do not recognize and know Me yet, Phillip? Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say then, show us the Father?"
For so long we have misunderstood the heart of our Father and mostly it's because we were taught incorrectly from the start. We've tried to walk with God with a right heart, but we always seem to fall short of what we believed God demanded from us. We tried to pray, but never had much confidence in getting an answer because we were always conscience of our short-comings. We misunderstood what it meant to "fear the Lord" and were in actuality afraid of God.
To fear the Lord is to respect, reverence and be in awe of Him. We've spent much of our Christian walk trying to be good so God would bless us or have favor towards us. All this time, God had already blessed and given favor and grace to us through Jesus.
As I continue saying to people in our congregation, "God is not your problem, He is your answer." If God is your problem, then you don't have an answer.
I taught a series of messages some time ago about the unclaimed riches of grace. Because we really never understood what grace has provided, we never reached out to receive what was there. The teaching centered in on Ephesians 2:8 (Amplified) which says that we were saved by grace (through faith), but we didn't really understand what it meant to be "saved." Mostly, we decided that being saved meant we were going to heaven when we died.
All that is true, but being saved means so much more than that. We were saved by grace through faith and our faith in what grace provided will determine how much of this "gift of grace" will manifest in our lives. It has already been provided for us, but must be received by faith in it.
Salvation has already been offered to the whole world. Jesus provided the doorway to God by His own sacrifice. He came so we could be free from all of the bondage of everything that transgressed in the Garden of Eden. Still, this awesome gift of grace and salvation must be received by faith.
There is nothing that Jesus died for (or better yet, what He was raised from the dead to bring us) that was held back from the believer. We were justified when He raised from the dead and all of our debt had been paid. For the most part, we seem to still be trying to pay it off by ourselves.
What grace has provided is a note, paid in full, that has set us free so people don't have to think about their pasts. As far as God's concerned, you have no past. 1 Corinthians 5:17-21 (Amplified) needs to be read in the Spirit of God so you will begin to really see Jesus in a new light. We read the words and misunderstood in our minds what the words say and never receive in our spirits the truth of this grace. This scripture must be received by faith in order to make you free from the accusations of your old life.
This scripture if true whether or not we believe it. But, in order to walk in the liberty of it, it must become real to you. Grace has provided much more for us than faith has ever received. Jesus did so many things that we're not walking in and that we still feel we must earn them in some way.
We've been taught that you can never know what God will do. That's not true at all. In
1 Corinthians 2:9-10 (Amplified) the Word tell us that, "What eye, ear and the natural mind of man could not understand, the Spirit of God has now revealed them to us as believers." The entire plan of salvation and redemption was hidden in Jesus until the time was right and now is that time to know and receive.
We still stand in fear of failure and punishment for our failures. We still have trouble trusting God with our lives. We still walk in fear of punishment most of the time. The teachings for the Body of Christ have been "do good, get good and do bad, get bad." Jesus took the bad, gave the good and Colossains 2:13-15 (Amplified) says Jesus nailed them to His cross and cancelled them out. And, it tells us that Jesus disarmed the powers that raged against us and made a public example over them.
Pleas, read this scripture over and over again.
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