Tuesday 14 May 2013

Who am I – God’s Grace Revealed (part 1 of 2)

In my blogger profile description I exclaim that I am “Enjoying God's radical, amazing transforming Grace through Jesus Christ”. With this statement, I would like to put some context around who I am, what I believe, and why I’m excited and amazed by His Grace. I will use two blog posts to detail the topic, first sharing from my experience and then highlighting some of the important differences between my traditional Christian understanding and what I now clearly realize is the Gospel.

In the church today, there is something wonderful permeating through many hearts. God is revealing afresh and bringing understanding back to the message of the cross. In a teaching that is often referred to as the Gospel of Grace, the heart of Jesus and the true good news of the finished work of Christ are portrayed. But whenever a fresh revelation comes, there is always opposition. This is natural to any message as we have been instructed in scripture to be diligent to test the messages and the spirit behind them (1 Thess 5:21, 1 John 4:1). I encourage everyone not to be closed when listening to something different from what we have been taught. It is important to always carefully review scriptures, listen to the teachings and gauge the heart and truth of the message. God’s Holy Spirit is with us gently guiding and revealing more of Christ. 

My Story – When being a “Good Christian” wasn't good Enough

For the most part of my life, I never thought I had much of a testimony. Even when I heard the word ‘testimony’, what would come to mind would be some of the amazing stories people shared and how God supernaturally brought them to Christ. I recall one fellow actor in a church play who had been set free from hardcore cocaine, sex and drug addiction. I also remember another lady who came powerfully to Christ while being delivered from the bondage of witchcraft. Some others had awesome healing testimonies and miracles that led them to faith. But for me, I just had a typical Christian upbringing, being raised Evangelical / Charismatic (yet attending Catholic school - a bit of a strange mix). To keep the religious boredom at bay, there were always interesting stories from the charismatic movement. :)

Growing up, what Christianity meant to me was to be good. I believed that the Gospel message - Jesus died for our sins - was for people who hadn't heard of Christ. However, once you were saved and had Jesus in your heart you needed to live right and be a good Christian. I was taught in church that living right included everything from studying the Bible, praying long prayers, being a strong witness, trying to get people to say the sinner's prayer, going to church many times a week and trying to make the fruit of the spirit grow. In all of this, I believed that God helped me or gave me strength to be this supposedly good Christian. It was almost a competition; I tried to be the best Christian I could. Even from a young age I would memorize all my Sunday school memory-verses perfectly. But with all my effort also came such hypocrisy. If I was this supposed good-Christian, I still couldn't keep my every thought and temptation in check. I would fight with my siblings. I would look down on people who weren't at my 'level' of spirituality. Every time I did something bad I would feel very guilty that I wasn't able to live up to the standard I needed to keep. I was constantly asking God for forgiveness believing that I would be stuck in my sin and risk hell if I didn't repent. It was all so religious and in all of it I missed God's heart.

I can't exactly pinpoint the time when it changed, but I began to realize with the help of my family (my aunts and mother were very influential)  that everything was about Jesus and not my effort or ability. I remember one time preparing a sermon while in high-school titled “the 10 steps for overcoming sin” and then sharing that message with my family only to be gently corrected and have the focus put back on Jesus instead of 'manageable' steps. My aunt reminded me that we could do nothing apart from Jesus. So with this limited understanding I modified my message to include the qualifier stating that "Jesus will help you and give you the strength to complete the 10 steps."  =)   I still didn't quite get the message of Grace and God’s heart, but He was definitely at work in my life.

With my new desire to focus on Jesus, I started to look for sermons which emphasized our wholeness in Christ and Jesus' finished work. I found that many churches and preachers had an understanding of forgiveness by grace, but still would emphasize obedience and law keeping as a means of right living. Sometime back in 2006 I saw a television program with Peter Youngren, who was giving a message emphasizing our sufficiency in Jesus Christ alone. I looked him up and found that he had a church in Toronto. So we (my family) started attending the Celebration church. The teaching was excellent and clearly emphasized Christ's finished work for salvation as well as for our righteousness and daily living. I was introduced to more Grace preachers/teachers including Joseph Prince and Steve McVey and I began delving full-on into their material. Some of the stuff I heard was a stretch to what I had been raised to believe, but as I continued to look at the scripture passages for myself I realized it was true. Finally everything began to make sense through the lens of Grace. Before I knew it, I was a "Grace Christian", which was something I used to be firmly against because in my ignorance I had thought grace churches taught that you could live anyway you liked and it didn't matter. 


W
ith an understanding of God's Grace and unconditional love and acceptance through Jesus, I could now freely love and accept myself and others without judgment and condemnation in the back of my mind. In my next post I will articulate some of the wonderful truths expounded in the Grace message.