This Week On Grace Walk Radio

This week's message on Grace For Life is:

Meditation for Freedom.

Grace For Life radio archives are here.

This Week On Grace Walk Radio

This week's message on Grace For Life is:

Church Membership or Biblical Fellowship?

Grace For Life radio archives are here.

Politics And Guarding The Heart

I became politically active in 1964, when Barry Goldwater ran against Lyndon Johnson. I was only 14 years old.

I've campaigned, planted signs, made phone-bank calls, done door-to-door flyers, attended rallies, written speeches.

In the late 60's, while half the country was going Left and anarchic, I went Right and Republican. I attended anti-communist John Birch Society meetings, led by Fred and Ethel [not their real names], a husband and wife who became my good friends.

But politics can't satisfy the heart, and I was lost as lost could be, until 1976, when God reached down and opened my heart to Jesus Christ.

As a new believer, I still took an active interest in political happenings, but the rabid hand-wringing and fighting ceased. I began to see the sovereignty of God in everything. I saw that the history that was unfolding was God's history, and that He was raising up and bringing down men and nations at will.

I began attending a wonderful church in 1976, and lo and behold, there were my friends Fred and Ethel, Christians who had told me about the Lord, but not with the enthusiasm they had for fighting the Communist Conspiracy.We became friends again, but Fred was always distraught about "the state of the Government and the World".

I was now engaged in ministry, and politics took a seat way in the back by comparison. Fred would have none of it. He seemed to truly love the Lord, but his crusade was a political one, seeking to save the world by politics, and it drove him over the edge. In the early 80's, Ethel went home one day and found Fred dead, hanging from a rope.

Devoid of understanding the sovereignty of God in nations, and not understanding that the Kingdom of God is not of this world, Fred thought things had gotten out of God's hand.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

"Seek first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness..." That's what's of primary importance to us. And that means that we not only witness of our Lord Jesus Christ, it means we rest in Him and His sovereignty, even while we support our candidates according to our consciences.

And it means that our faith should work itself out in love (Gal. 5:6) . . . Love for Republicans, and Democrats, and political opponents, and other ethnic groups, and immigrants (legal and otherwise), and Muslims, and even terrorists (though the Government doesn't bear the sword for nothing -- Rom. 13:4).

Otherwise, we're just clanging cymbals (1 Cor. 13:1), and our politics has become our God in practice.

This Week On Grace Walk Radio

This week's message on Grace For Life is:

Where Do You Go When You Sin?

Grace For Life radio archives are here.

If We're Under Grace, Why The Commands?

A reader calling herself "confused" asked the following question in a comment on Legalism Destroys Love:

"Might it not be true that those often labeled as "legalists" are actually those who already understand the Grace of God and who are trying to search the Scriptures for the voice of God on how they should live, how Jesus lived in the Gift of God's Word?"

This is a great question, and it actually points to what I believe is part of the real purpose for the commands in the New Covenant scriptures.

In other words, if we are no longer under law, but under grace (Rom. 6:14), then why do we have all the commands in the epistles at all?

I believe there are two main answers:

1. The commands show us the heart and mind of the One we love. Since we love the Lord, as believers in Him, doesn't it make sense that we want to know the things that He desires, the things that please Him? Of course. And these commands, although they bring us no condemnation, reveal to us the heart of the Lover of our souls.

2. The commands reveal to us when we are not walking by the Spirit, but are walking by the flesh. It shows us that we have been deceived by the world, the flesh, and the devil to be somehow "conformed to the world". This acts as a wonderful prompt to us to get back in communion with the Lord, to get back into the fulness of His Spirit, to get back in touch with our own new spirit, to again have our minds renewed by His Word, and to again walk by the Spirit.

Isn't that what we want in our heart of hearts? Isn't that what we crave as a New Creation?

It's not legalism to want to obey Him, when our obedience comes from our love for Him, or from His very Life living out through us.

This Week On Grace Walk Radio

This week's message on Grace For Life is:

Is Ted Haggard A Deceiver and A Liar?

Grace For Life radio archives are here.