StriperAddict
Senior Member
Grace and faith, a winning combination.
Faith is not the savior, Grace is.
We choose to believe the good news, but God has already decided the consequence of our believing in Christ.
Fortunately, the consequence he chose is in our favor.
Eternal life!
That's grace.
It’s God’s Grace shown in Christ and welcomed in the hearts of men and women, that glorifies Him.
Anything other than eternal, unalterable, non-forfeitable salvation, is not grace, even when called by the same name.
Messages that change grace into a message of our works, do not honor Christs work for us and therefore do not glorify God.
Salvation is not probation. Adam was on probation. And God was waiting for him to mess it up.
All it took for Adam to lose the temporal life he had was ONE sin and that's all it would take for us if we had temporal life like Adam had.
But we do not have temporal life.
We have life eternal!
God is not waiting to see if we mess up. That ship has sailed!
Gods plan today is not to save us and then put us back in a garden with a choice to stay saved each day.
That's probation. But it's not salvation.
Christ didn't die to be Adam all over again only called by another name. Christ is the last Adam.
With one death and one resurrection, Christ succeeded where Adam failed.
Yet, his success was not for himself, it was for us!
And unlike Adams failure, Christs success for us has permanent ongoing results!
At the moment we believed in Christ each of us was permanently removed from our death-dealing union with Adam and placed into a permanent union with the risen Christ.
It didn’t depend on the strength of our spiritual batting average, but on his!
The reason our union with Christ is permanent is because Jesus EVER LIVES to make intercession FOR US! Christ Himself would need to die again for anything to touch the believer's permanent union with Christ.
And dear friend, that is not going to happen.
Thank God!
If we've been saved, we can't lose what we have by being bad cuz we didn't get it by being good!
Just as Christ only needed to die ONCE to perfect our salvation, so saving faith does not require our repeating over and over again.
Jesus perfect work and our simple hearing the good news, inspires a faith that “takes” unto eternal salvation.
Consider the Israelites who were bitten by venomous snakes. God equates their look at the brazen snake and living, with our looking at the savior in faith and receiving everlasting life.
How many times did those infected by deadly venom need to look at the snake on the pole?
They looked but ONCE and they lived!
Did God tell the Jews to look at the snake and commit their lives to the snake?
No sir.
Did God ask that the Jews look at the snake and confess the snake to others?
Not on your life.
Did the Jews look at the snake and promise to continue looking at the snake?
If they did so, they'd have awfully stiff necks!
Certainly not!
The truth?
One simple look...and they lived.
And one look of faith at Christ and we live...forever!
That’s grace!
Grace miraculously takes us out of death and into life, not gradually, as we learn the ropes of religion, but instantaneously and eternally, when we hear the voice of God in the gospel...and we believe!
That's grace and its good news to anyone who needs a savior.
This same good news is repeated with the woman at the well. Christ promised the woman that if she drank from him she would never thirst.
He could have told her "now make sure you hang out at the well and next time you get thirsty just lower your bucket."
But he didn't.
Instead, he inspired confidence in him that ONE (spiritual) drink from him, would have everlasting effects.
And she drank once and never thirsted again.
Notice that the woman didn't need to keep coming to Christ over and over again to make sure she *really* drank of him the first time.
it was just the opposite: knowing she drank of him and knowing the sufficiency of drinking ONCE, she testified of him who told her everything about her life.
One drink, her choice. One drink, eternal consequence.
His Grace.
Our faith.
Grace and faith, God’s awesome and winning combination.
Faith is not the savior, Grace is.
We choose to believe the good news, but God has already decided the consequence of our believing in Christ.
Fortunately, the consequence he chose is in our favor.
Eternal life!
That's grace.
It’s God’s Grace shown in Christ and welcomed in the hearts of men and women, that glorifies Him.
Anything other than eternal, unalterable, non-forfeitable salvation, is not grace, even when called by the same name.
Messages that change grace into a message of our works, do not honor Christs work for us and therefore do not glorify God.
Salvation is not probation. Adam was on probation. And God was waiting for him to mess it up.
All it took for Adam to lose the temporal life he had was ONE sin and that's all it would take for us if we had temporal life like Adam had.
But we do not have temporal life.
We have life eternal!
God is not waiting to see if we mess up. That ship has sailed!
Gods plan today is not to save us and then put us back in a garden with a choice to stay saved each day.
That's probation. But it's not salvation.
Christ didn't die to be Adam all over again only called by another name. Christ is the last Adam.
With one death and one resurrection, Christ succeeded where Adam failed.
Yet, his success was not for himself, it was for us!
And unlike Adams failure, Christs success for us has permanent ongoing results!
At the moment we believed in Christ each of us was permanently removed from our death-dealing union with Adam and placed into a permanent union with the risen Christ.
It didn’t depend on the strength of our spiritual batting average, but on his!
The reason our union with Christ is permanent is because Jesus EVER LIVES to make intercession FOR US! Christ Himself would need to die again for anything to touch the believer's permanent union with Christ.
And dear friend, that is not going to happen.
Thank God!
If we've been saved, we can't lose what we have by being bad cuz we didn't get it by being good!
Just as Christ only needed to die ONCE to perfect our salvation, so saving faith does not require our repeating over and over again.
Jesus perfect work and our simple hearing the good news, inspires a faith that “takes” unto eternal salvation.
Consider the Israelites who were bitten by venomous snakes. God equates their look at the brazen snake and living, with our looking at the savior in faith and receiving everlasting life.
How many times did those infected by deadly venom need to look at the snake on the pole?
They looked but ONCE and they lived!
Did God tell the Jews to look at the snake and commit their lives to the snake?
No sir.
Did God ask that the Jews look at the snake and confess the snake to others?
Not on your life.
Did the Jews look at the snake and promise to continue looking at the snake?
If they did so, they'd have awfully stiff necks!
Certainly not!
The truth?
One simple look...and they lived.
And one look of faith at Christ and we live...forever!
That’s grace!
Grace miraculously takes us out of death and into life, not gradually, as we learn the ropes of religion, but instantaneously and eternally, when we hear the voice of God in the gospel...and we believe!
That's grace and its good news to anyone who needs a savior.
This same good news is repeated with the woman at the well. Christ promised the woman that if she drank from him she would never thirst.
He could have told her "now make sure you hang out at the well and next time you get thirsty just lower your bucket."
But he didn't.
Instead, he inspired confidence in him that ONE (spiritual) drink from him, would have everlasting effects.
And she drank once and never thirsted again.
Notice that the woman didn't need to keep coming to Christ over and over again to make sure she *really* drank of him the first time.
it was just the opposite: knowing she drank of him and knowing the sufficiency of drinking ONCE, she testified of him who told her everything about her life.
One drink, her choice. One drink, eternal consequence.
His Grace.
Our faith.
Grace and faith, God’s awesome and winning combination.