My thoughts: Grace alone has the power to put us in living connection with the One who alone is truly righteous. We then share in His very life. That life is inherently righteous, of course. Built in is God’s ‘virtue set’ of love, wisdom, patience, etc. I believe that as we learn to receive the full measure of His Grace, having fully seen our need for it, and realising we are new creations in Christ, the good works will start to happen naturally. ‘Good works’, entered into for the wrong reasons, may simply give people a comfortable ride to hell, or cause Christians to continue living in the flesh.

The Law taught as demands may produce an apparent result quicker than grace, but in reality it is better to wait for the real thing, works stemming from grace. This route alone will bring the required Kingdom fruit.

If you have been fully established in the revelation of Grace, and you want to eat some solid spiritual food, I would encourage you to check out http://jglm.org/ which is the website of John G Lake Ministries. The current overseer of this ministry, Curry Blake, says the following: “Your level of spiritual maturity is not determined by the amount of Bible that you know, but by the amount of Bible that you actually put into practice in your life.”

His ministry has blessed me and helped me to see more clear and how simple it actually is that we as children of God were meant to walk as Jesus did, to heal the sick and raise the dead!!! Curry has already raised 9 people from the dead and personally seen over 70,000 people healed.

Hope it blesses you too!
In Grace
Andre

I think the key to the 2nd component is in Colosians

the truth of the gospel, 6 which has come to you, as it has also in all the world, and is bringing forth fruit, as it is also among you since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth; Col 1:5-6 (NKJV)

that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; Col 1:10 (NKJV)

A revelation of the Grace of God is staggering, and will motivate people to bear fruit, if it doesn’t then maybe they havn’t really understood the gospel, which seems fairly widespread.

I would definitely want to see more “grace preachers” preach on the 2nd component then. I don’t see this happening at all… as soon as preachers preach any kind of ‘deed’ or ‘rule’ like an outreach, or serving request or giving or any kind of command you have your grace-extremists (my own word, lets call people who never get to the 2nd component or grace this) jump up and shout “i am free, i am bound by no law”, “i am free, i have not to do anything”.

i guess personally I’ve been burnt by people who are so “free” in Christ and Grace their freedom actually leads astray, hurts or confuses others.

Thank you very much for your comment. It’s great to see that you too are a person that actually wants to SEE the children of God make an impact in the world, and you are right: It will never happen through Christians simply sitting in pews feeling good about themselves because they now understand Grace.

Grace is the foundation, but Grace has 2 components:
1) Acceptance: Grace gives us the revelation that we are unconditionally loved an accepted by God and that He relates to us not on the basis of our own level of obedience or good works, but on the basis of the perfect obedience of Jesus Christ.
2) Empowerment: Grace empowers us to do greater exploits for God than we were ever able to do under the law, but is is now the Holy Spirit living THROUGH us, and not us trying to accomplish it in our own strength.

Unfortunately many Christians are sitting at the bus stop of knowing they are going to heaven, but are too comfortable staying there and never move on to the second component of Grace.

Law preachers unfortunately don’t make the world a better place, because the Law robs people of confidence before God, always makes them feel unworthy. They are serving under a covenant of DEATH (2 Cor 3:7). By only DOING the right things, it will never lead us to believe the right things, but if we keep on immersing ourselves in the right beliefs (GRACE), sooner or later good works will begin to flow as a result, a FRUIT.

Watch this space in the next 2 weeks – I have written 2 articles pertaining specifically to WORKS. The first one talks about why “Holy Living” is still important and relevant in the life a of a Grace believing Christian, and the next one talks about the impact of our actions in Heaven & eternity.

Thank you for your comment.

In Grace
Andre

I know it sounds strange…bear with me…There’s a thin line between living in grace and being useless to the body of Christ, and living in grace and actually making a difference in this world, fulfilling your role in the body.

One thing these ‘law-preachers’ do is make the world a better place, they get the word of God to counties unimaginable, they get people to give to the hungry, look after the poor, heal the broken, even if the motives are wrong (righteousness by deeds). but what do ‘grace-preachers’ do? do they help in feeding the poor? do they support evangelism? Do they give to the hungry? or do they simply preach freedom from the law, the end.

I believe true freedom in Christ should prompt you to a life of serving and evangelism. The danger here is that too many people get stuck in this “i am free” mindset and become useless to the body of Christ.

I hope this makes sense.