God’s Grace in a Dark World

GOD’S GRACE IN A DARK WORLD

1Corinthians 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am 
When Paul made that statement, he knew that what he had become through God’s grace was God’s doing, and not his doing. He also said it was not him doing the work of God, but it was the grace of Jesus working with him. That grace was God’s activity upon his soul that empowered him to respond to God in love and the surrender of his will and to know that Jesus was working through him every moment of his life. That was his faith.
So what did Paul think he was before the grace of God took over his life?
He thought he was a top-class man of God.
Philippians 3:4 If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh (natural humanity), I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

He goes on to say in another place in Galatians 1:14 … And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles…

Before Paul found grace, he was part of the disorder and violence of a treacherous world in a dark time in history. After he found grace, he became part of God’s answer of love and light that overcame the darkness of that world. Jesus had overcome the darkness through his death and resurrection, and then he sent forth messengers of his grace. God is doing the same thing today!

We might be inclined to think that Paul’s existence was of such significance and importance for what God called him to do, that the activity of God’s grace upon us could not be anything like God’s grace upon Paul. But we would be wrong to think that, as Paul wrote to Titus concerning the grace upon all of us through Jesus. 
Titus 2:11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has shone upon all mankind.

Grace is the loving activity of God upon a human soul, and when we know that we can access this grace through our faith we realize that it is sufficient for each one of us to do what God has called us to do (we don’t have to feel it – just know it). Like Paul we are what we are by the grace of God, and we do what we do by the grace of God. It is grace that bring us home.
God’s grace for Paul was waiting for him from before he was born, and he writes about this eternal aspect of grace in the Bible.
Galatians 1:15 But he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles…
You also find grace in the eyes of the Lord to live the life of truth and love that you were created to live in, even before you were born, and this new life involves allowing Jesus to be the number one player in a team called you.

Paul had seen himself as a religious man of great competence and great commitment to the cause of his Jewish tradition. He served God through his own strategy and ambition, and he took great pride in his own achievements. His competitive and committed human nature had created a power base that drove him to religious success in his own eyes and in the eyes of other zealous Jews. That was Paul’s former ‘I am what I am’ – his spiritual identity. But Paul’s religion did not put God’s love or mercy in his heart or a humble and surrendered will towards God in his soul, or a oneness with Jesus in the Spirit. He had to find that grace in the eyes of the Lord Jesus on his road to Damascus. There are multitudes of people who are committed to the cause of doing things for God that have a similar zeal and passion for success like Paul did and they live out of a misplaced spiritual identity like the Saul who had to become the Paul. They have yet to find the grace of God for whatever God has planned for them. 

That misplaced spiritual identity is working in the religious fervour in a multitude of ideologies in the world today with a superabundance of commitment to self-proclaimed noble causes and virtues that have nothing to do with a commitment to a loving relationship with the living God. The religious fervour of these ideologies has found a place in the power bases of society, in sport and in the corporate world, in politics and in the media, and in education of young children and university students. These power bases are capable of punishing through fear and intimidation any citizen who does not acknowledge the virtues of these ideologies. The ideologies revolve around intense perceptions of issues that have become extreme causes such as gender identity, climate theory, racial differences, Marxist philosophy and economics and other inflated issues. For example, eaxtreme climate ideologists predict doom for the planet in a few years if all nations do not pay their dues or offer the sacrifices required for us all to survive, and an entire generation of young people has an unhealthy fear that the world will end if we do not all comply, and fear is a powerful motivation. 
There are unhealthy fears and there are also healthy fears regarding obvious dangers that we need to be warned about. God also uses fear to motivate people to change their ways, and it has its place in bringing lawless and ungodly people to their knees, but fear is not God’s first preference as a motivation even though the church has been using it throughout the centuries to get people to go to church and obey church tradition. The Gospel of grace is God’s first preference and that offers people God’s love and forgiveness and mercy and a way to live a grace filled life. 
That grace can come upon anyone in any ideological powerbase and convert them sovereignly as seen in the life of Paul. That is the Lord’s doing and I pray we will see many such miracles in the days ahead.

The world today is beset with more ‘unlove’ and bitterness and rancour than ever before. The powers of darkness are hurling chaos and disorder and lawlessness into peoples’ hearts and bringing contention and division into every aspect of our culture.
The Bible speaks of times like these regarding the kind of darkness that will exist on the earth in the end times. Nobody knows when the end times will fully come upon us, but the way things are today gives us some indication of what they will be like.
Matthew 24:9 many will be offended, and will betray one another, and will hate one another, then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved.
Those things abound now in the days in which we live, and in amongst the violence and corruption the most ominous aspect of life today is ‘the love of many will grow cold’.

Jude writes urgently about how ungodly people should fear God’s judgement, but he especially urges us to live out our grace filled lives as his antidote to these lawless attitudes and behaviours. 
Jude1:14. Dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ told you, that in the last times there would come these scoffers whose whole purpose in life is to enjoy themselves in every evil way imaginable. They stir up arguments; they love the evil things of the world; they do not have the Holy Spirit life.But you, dear friends, must build up your lives ever more strongly upon the foundation of our holy faith, learning to pray in the power and strength of the Holy Spirit. Stay always within the boundaries where God’s love can reach and bless you. Wait patiently for the eternal life that our Lord Jesus Christ in his mercy and grace is going to give you. Try to help those who argue against you. Be merciful to those who doubt. Save some by fear, snatching them as from the very flames of hell itself, but as for others, help them to find the Lord by being gracious to them

Satan gave humanity a rule of destruction to live by – a deadly commandment if you will – that you hate one another as I have hated you, and we are living in times where there is much fear and hatred, but God’s love which casts out all fear is on the rise today through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ who has given us his new Commandment – that you love one another as I have loved you. 
 Paul tells us that it was God’s love that compelled his heart to serve him and to serve the people he was sent to. He writes Whatever we do, it is certainly not for our own gain but because Christ’s love compels us. (2Corinthians 5:14).
Paul’s soul was bursting with that powerful love and he could hardly contain himself when he said, May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love; and may you be able to feel and understand, as all God’s children should, how long, how wide, how deep, and how high his love really is; and to experience this love for yourselves, though it is so great that you will never see the end of it or fully know or understand it. And so at last you will be filled up with God himself (Ephesians 3:17-19)

Paul lived within the intense yearning of God’s heart of love for him and that intense yearning of God’s heart is for us as well. That love is jealous for us which means that it wants the best for us and does not accept any harmful second best. That yearning wants to take anything out of the way in us that could stop us from responding to his love and stop us from spreading that love to others, as the Apostle James also writes, What do you think the Scripture means when it says that the Holy Spirit, whom God has placed within us, yearns jealously for us? But he gives us more and more grace to stand against all evil desires. (James 4:5)

Israel conquered the territory of Canaan to possess the wonderful blessings of the Promised Land. We have been given the territory of the hearts of men and women to conquer with God’s love. The activity of this love upon our hearts (God’s grace), is beginning to abound and it will continue to much more abound than the evil we see abounding in this dark world as we look forward to the moving of his Spirit in the earth. The Bible says that as we press on to know the Lord he will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth (Hosea 6:3).
There are two kinds of rain spoken of here. One is a gentler rain (former rain) and the other is a stronger rain (latter rain). The first rain is the gentle rain of God’s loving grace that softens the hearts of men and women as they faithfully receive the understanding of God’s love. The other is the deluge of God’s sovereign outpouring of grace upon the earth which will come in due time and where people of all ages will be touched by God and suddenly transformed by his grace. Let us remain constant in prayer and compelled by God’s love that we might witness these things.