30th Mar 26 | 13:54
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Luke 24 50-53 THE BLESSING OF GOD 05 17May2022 Luke 24 50-51 Living by grace
📖 Luke 24:50-53
05 – 17May2022 – Living by grace - Luke 24:50-53 - THE BLESSING OF GOD - Bible reading: Micah 7:18-20
“Thank You, Lord Jesus, that You give us the privilege to appreciate and appropriate Your blessing into our lives. Lord, we thank You for the blessing of Your grace. Lord, teach us to live out of Your grace. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.”
Luke 24:50-51 And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. (51) Now it came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven.
As Jesus ascended, He blessed the disciples. We have been studying the Aaronic blessing and we have been focusing on God’s graciousness.
Numbers 6:25 The LORD make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you;
Let us look at another dimension of God’s grace.
Micah 7:18-20 Who is a God like You, Pardoning iniquity And passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain His anger forever, Because He delights in mercy. (19) He will again have compassion on us, And will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins Into the depths of the sea. (20) You will give truth to Jacob And mercy to Abraham, Which You have sworn to our fathers From days of old.
We are familiar with this part of God’s grace that He pardons our iniquities. He has compassion and mercy on us. This is His graciousness.
God pardon our iniquities, but He also subdues our iniquities. He confronts our iniquities and He corrects us, to be conformed to His character. The grace of God enables us to walk in His truth. This is His grace.
God is holy and righteous. There is no darkness in Him at all. He cannot pardon our sins and leave us. He will intervene in our lives, by His grace. He will correct us and He will shape us into His nature, in our entire person.
I Thessalonians 5:23-24 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (24) He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.
Let us consider the ways of God with the people of Israel.
Deuteronomy 8:2-3 And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. (3) So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.
This was God’s grace that He was shaping the Israelites. They had to learn the lesson of walking by His word. This was God’s grace that He intervened in their lives, purposefully.
They experienced God’s provision, care and even His forgiveness but did they learn the lesson of walking in His truth, which was also His grace. Sadly, we find that the majority of those who came out of Egypt, to go to the promised land, perished in the wilderness. They did not appropriate God’s grace.
I Corinthians 10:5 But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.
We must get serious with God’s grace. God’s grace is not some fluffy, comforting experience. God’s grace builds His character into us. We do not have the option to ignore His grace. The inner core strength of our lives is that we are people, not only of God’s mercy but also of His truth.
Jesus was the embodiment of grace and truth.
John 1:17-18 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (18) No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
God pardons iniquities but He also subdues iniquities. The embodiment of God’s nature is Jesus. Jesus came to reveal God to us. When we receive Jesus into our lives, by faith, we experience God’s grace and His truth. Through Christ, God forgives and conforms us to His nature.
Romans 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
God wants us to be right before Him. He forgives us in Jesus, and He aligns us to His character.
We receive Jesus into our lives by faith, and we live by faith in Him so that we are conformed to God’s character. This is the experience of God’s grace. God’s grace enables us to live out the truth.
Ephesians 2:8-10 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, (9) not of works, lest anyone should boast. (10) For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
God’s grace is a past experience, and God’s grace is a present continuous experience.
Our good works are the revelation of God’s character in our lives. His nature is made flesh in us. This is the work of God’s grace.
Thought to ponder
Are you living out the grace of God?