The entire reason for the new covenant of grace through Jesus was because man could never do on his own what was needed to restore himself back to right standing with God. Only God Himself, through the Blood and sacrifice of Jesus, could establish this righteousness. Only the Blood of God Himself, through Jesus, could completely remove the sin Adam had brought on all mankind. Grace is of paramount importance to the believer because once we recognize that only grace can restore us, we will have faith enough to approach God in a way man never could before.
When we fully realize how important grace is, our faith should be on a higher level than any man (other than Jesus Himself) could ever hope to achieve. By grace, we've been placed in a place that Adam first walked before the fall. We're at a higher place really, because we have been identified with Jesus and His victory, rather than Adam and his fall.
We mostly, still feel like we must prove ourselves unto God in order to gain some kind of favor with Him. It's only our misunderstanding grace that lead us to feel this way. According to Hebrews 4:16, the throne of grace is actually the very presence of the Father.
The High Priest could only enter into the throne room of grace after many sacrifices and days of fasting and cleansing. Now, by faith in Jesus, grace has made that throne room available to the believer. Heaven has been opened to the believer by grace and faith in this grace and the sacrifice of Jesus. Once we understand that the only thing required of us is to believe, then all of the wealth and power of heaven is available to the believer.
This isn't something that will be available to us some day, but is what Jesus' sacrifice has made available to us now. It's not a matter of us going to heaven some day, but the fact that heaven has now come unto us by grace. We've somehow looked at grace and favor as God's feeling sorry for us poor mortals. This is true to a certain degree, but not as we would think. God's pity or feeling sorry for us poor mortals is because man could never save himself. For this reason, the undeserved favor and mercy of God intervened on our behalf.
God Himself was forced into a place where He couldn't enjoy or fellowship with His Own children because of Adam's fall. The whole purpose of creations was so that God could have a family. The sorrow God had was the sorrow of a Father being separated from His children. They were cut off from Him, through no fault of their own, and were cast away from His love and presence.
The great heart of Love Himself couldn't stand the sorrow of the loss of His children. The only way for Him to walk with them would be that He Himself would need to pay the price of their redemption. We forget sometimes that Jesus was also God in His flesh form. God Himself, by grace and Love, died to restore His family back to life. And, now this awesome grace has removed all the barriers between God and His children.
Even after everything God did to restore us back to Him, we don't understand grace and insist on staying aloof from Him. We still feel like we're unclean and unfit to enter the throne room of grace. We have inflicted ourselves with things that make us feel more fit to be accepted by Him. We have done what they had to do centuries ago to gain entry into His presence. We construct rules, laws and rituals in order to appease our own sense of righteousness. This isn't only wrong, but is actually disrespectful to what Jesus did on our behalf.
We still walk in the wrong belief that if we will only pray more, dress differently or follow the Law, then maybe we can gain favor with God. Galatians 3 talks about this very thing of frustrating the grace of God. Having begun in the Spirit, we are now trying to gain perfection through works. We've concentrated so much on works that we forget that good works are products of God's grace and not an entry into His grace. Some things we've learned are good things, but not all. We need to allow the Spirit of Liberty to set us free from the Law.
Even though we know we are free from the Law pertaining to our righteousness, we continue to use the Law to obtain it. Only faith in Jesus can make us righteous in God's sight. This is the gift of righteousness by faith in Jesus. You cannot improve on it because it is God's Own self Who obtained it and it is His righteousness alone. How can we ever hope of improving on the righteousness of Christ?
When we, by faith in His grace, will only stop struggling and striving to become righteous and receive the righteousness of Christ Jesus by faith, then our joy will be complete. We constantly chastise ourselves for our failure to measure up. If we will allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us, then we will find that in Jesus, we've already measured up.
It's only natural for the carnal man to feel unworthy and unclean before such a Holy God. However, we are no longer the old man, but new creatures who are heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus. We can't seem to get it down into our heart that God has done what we couldn't do on our own and has made us to be in right standing with Him.
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