Lecture 2: The magnificient grace of God

(GB Message)

Before we begin the lesson:
Some may think that they are hearing the same old message repeatedly. Thinking in this way indicates that the message does not penetrate into your mind. It could be a warning that ‘sin lies at the door’. For the past 2000 years God is preaching the same old message. Though it is the same old message of God spoken to millions of people for two millennia, it penetrates into the mind of only a few. People would rather hear new messages, interesting stories, strange presentations, attractive T.V. style preachers and so on.

There are many attractive fancy churches in nooks and corners of every city: handclapping churches, drum-beating churches, Amen-shouting churches, slaying-of-the-Spirit churches, prosperity-gospel churches, not to speak of hundreds of varieties of traditional churches. There are churches where one can hear long sermons and churches where one can hear a neat twenty-minute message. Apart from these churches there are also, all night prayer meetings, fasting and prayer groups, miracles meetings and so on so forth.

Let us choose our church carefully because the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has foretold “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ ”, Mt 7: 22, 23.

This church is meant exclusively for a limited number of people who earnestly wish to be ready to meet the Lord in the air, or be added to the chosen few to be in heaven. You must not expect to hear fancy sermons here. Some, even without knowing that this is the case, are godly only outwardly. They only know in theory about the inner man, soul, spirit, and the like. They even think they are practising the Christian life. But in fact they are functioning only in the outer man. To see this is something that discourages me at times. But this is not an earthly institution for me run away from unfortunate situations.

That is why I have taken the responsibility of beginning a new kind of spiritual lesson that I call micro teaching. In this, I teach the fundamentals descriptively, systematically and step by step. This may be boring to some because they think they have heard of it a few times earlier. I don’t mind such remarks. I am addressing this talk to all those who wish sincerely and intensely to be in the kingdom of heaven. I am one with such people. Let us all join together and make a sincere effort to be in the kingdom of heaven. This is not a time for drama acting. Everyone must learn systematically, earnestly, and enthusiastically and also with great humility and love for one another.

One of the serious drawbacks I noticed of late is that Satan has successfully made some of the believers here to bypass using the notes they have taken; they take the notes perhaps to answer the questions that I ask you, forgetting that what we hear are messages that are given us by the Holy Spirit to bring about change and growth in our lives. They hear the message carefully, and take notes, and then do not ever read the notes again. Individual Bible reading has a place in every Christian’s life; so must going through the notes that you take of the messages that God gives to us in the church.

The Grace of God
Grace is the extraordinary favour of God imparted to anyone for His own will and pleasure. It is the greatest single blessing of God next only to salvation that any one could aspire for. Paradoxically, although God’s grace is the easiest to receive, yet it is the most difficult to get. It is easy because Lord Jesus is ever ready to impart it to all those who genuinely ask for it, but difficult because the recipient, more often than not, lacks the honesty in his approach and does not have that certain attitude of mind expected by the Lord. It will never be difficult for any genuine believer to receive His grace. Whether he needs the grace of God to have the right attitude, or the right attitude to receive His grace is worth pondering over. Though it may sound paradoxical, on closer consideration we find that it is not so.

As in some spiritual steps it is likely that there is a seeming ambiguity about it. But the loving Lord has always an answer or word of clarification in any such situation, to all those who approach Him genuinely. The Lord’s word of assurance sounds clearly and unambiguously when approached with the help of the Holy Spirit, “…. It has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given”, Mt 13: 11.

To begin with, the Lord always allows the benefit of doubt to a believer/truth seeker, and straightaway imparts His grace with the clear instruction through the word of God as to the kind of mental attitude he should have. It is the duty of the believer to find out what these conditions are.

The much needed grace, according to apostle Peter, is readily available from God but we learn that He grants it only to the humble. We also learn at the same time that He is opposed to the proud, (1 Pet 5; 5, James 4: 6). This kind of humility, however, is only to begin with. God expects the believer to improve on it more and more.

The goal should be to develop this humility at the level of one’s spirit, in his heart, as different from superficially in the outer man. But we cannot achieve such a level without the help of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit does not help a superficial, proud, and hypocritical man. This true humility is called ‘poverty of spirit.’ That is the goal Lord Jesus has set up for His disciples because that is the nature everyone in heaven is going to have. That is why the word of God confirms “…. for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”, Mt 5: 3.

Therefore it should be the aim of every disciple of Lord Jesus to sincerely aspire for it and endeavour to reach that goal with the help of the Holy Spirit. We have already learnt that we must cease to worship or pray to God through the outer man like the dead churches and other worldly religious communities do. As Lord Jesus announced, God has stopped dealing with all those who do not seek to communicate with Him through their spirit. Just as He desires His worshippers to worship Him in spirit and truth, correspondingly, humility is to be developed at the level of the spirit.

The poverty in spirit means humility at rock-bottom level. It may also mean realizing one’s utter bankruptcy in spiritual matters apart from God; in other words, arriving at the realization of the hopelessness of their spiritual condition but at the same time hoping and depending entirely upon the grace of God for their survival. Only to such people does Lord Jesus offer the heavenly abode. It is good to remember how we were saved by the grace of God, “By grace you have been saved”, Eph 2: 5; 8: 2, Tim 1: 9 etc. That is why the message of salvation is known as ‘the Gospel of grace’ Acts 20: 24. Apostle Paul was proud to announce that he had received the stewardship of the grace of God, Eph 3: 2 (as one who teaches others the Gospel of grace).

In order to avail this magnificent gift of God’s grace or the grace of Lord Jesus Christ, we ought to attain the poverty of spirit, a deep down humility at the level of one’s own spirit. In order to reach that state, it is necessary that we develop two other spiritual qualities: They are

• A broken and contrite heart, which means a heart ready to be moulded at any time according to the word of God as and when confronted by it, besides developing a child-like heart.
• Having a hunger and thirst after the righteousness. Depending upon the intensity of one’s hunger, God is willing to fill his heart with this precious righteousness. That means all the heavenly qualities put together including the poverty of spirit.