Hi all,
Did you hear about the Texas pastor claiming the Holy Spirit told him anyone who gave $52 towards getting new blades for his helicopter will have a transportation breakthrough of their own "in 52 days or 52 weeks"? I have to wonder if some pastors are even going to make it to heaven! If so, does a stunt like this survive heaven's scrutiny?
 
First things first: Does a Christian who dies go straight to heaven?
The confusion around this question is rooted in the Middle Ages when infant mortality was high and you were in old age if you lived to be 40. A money raising scheme was started that taught there is a middle place for the dead in between heaven and hell where the dead wait for release - and for an offering of course you could pray and send your dead loved one out of there and on to heaven.
 
And while that teaching may sound corrupt, it is the same principle used by ministers to manipulate people today for instance, when they are told to give $52 for new blades for the pastor's helicopter to get a transportation breakthrough of their own.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/06/19/texas-pastor-donate-to-fix-my-helicopter-and-get-a-new-car-from-god/
 
Or I could mention bringing $100 to the platform at the speaker's feet and you will get healed or have a financial breakthrough. Or put this cloth under your pillow and pray this pray for 7 days and on the 8th day send your prayer request with your best offering to... With preachers doing things like this, we can understand the confusion among believers in this day.
 
Bible says...Christians go to heaven right away
Paul compares and contrasts the earthly with the heavenly, stating we groan and long to be clothed upon from on high - not that we want to die as much as we just want to be "...clothed by our house which is from heaven." II Corinthians 5:1-10
 
He compares our bodies to tents and homes saying, "...if the tent which is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." (Your glorified body will last forever - eternal in the heavens)
 
But he turns his readers towards hope, saying this: "Therefore being of good courage, and knowing while we are home (present) in the body we are absent from the Lord (for we walk by faith, not by sight), we are of good courage I say, but would prefer to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord." v6-8
 
(And just in case you know someone who believes there is no such thing as sin anymore, all is grace and love with no accountability, v10 says: For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, so that each one of us may receive what is due us for things done while in the body, whether good or bad.")
 
So this shows a Christian who dies goes straight to heaven - but what about those unresolved sins?
 
Wow those people were carnal!
He wrote the Corinthians Christians go to heaven when they die, but have you seen what kind of believers they were? They make my examples of the speeder, porn addict, bitter woman and suicide look like spiritual giants by comparison.
 
Among the issues in Corinth were a man sleeping with his step mother, believers (who met in homes) divided into cliques with the rich people refusing to eat and have the Lord's Supper with the poor people, wives finding their freedom in Christ and flaunting it, refusing to properly dress as local custom required, thus dishonoring themselves, their husbands, and their faith, 2 brothers who sat in the same (house) church suing each other in court instead of being mature enough to settle it between themselves, and much more.
 
But those are not what he dealt with first - the first sins in their midst he addressed before telling them Christians who die go directly to be with the Lord, is the carnality of living like un-born again people, or as 'mere men' as he put it.
 
"And I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you were not able to receive anything else and even now you aren't able for you are still fleshly. Since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly and living like mere (un-born again) people?"
 
Spiritual loyalty and strife
Here he speaks of people claiming to be of one spiritual camp or the other - I am of Paul or I am of Apollos -The issue wasn't liking one ministry over another, rather letting it get to the point of jealousy and strife among them.
 
But what if those living as mere unborn again people (in strife and jealous of one another) die before growing up in Christ?
 
He tells them: "No man can lay a foundation other than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, each person's work will become evident. The day will show it because it is to be revealed by fire, with the fire itself testing each person's work (actions). If anyone's work remains, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet as through the fire." (3:11-15)
 
So here we see that Christians who die with carnality built upon the foundation of Jesus in their hearts will be saved, but as by fire - their strife and jealousy likened to wood, hay, and stubble here, which will not survive the Lord's scrutiny.
 
Later he would speak of walking in love - clearly the things of love are the gold, silver, precious stones which are untouched by fire.
 
Think of it this way
So I've answered the basic question about what happens to Christians who die with unresolved sin - they go to heaven - yet the works of the flesh will be burned away, though they will be saved. So imagine a believer still filled with anger and hurt and bitterness towards their past, yet they love Jesus - they make it through but all that hurt and unresolved bitterness doesn't - what grace to finally be free! What love to not allow such things into His perfect kingdom of love and peace! Things which bring torment or caused us torment are not allowed in heaven - what grace!
 
So imagine that woman who committed suicide. Those who murder themselves aren't well in the mind and emotions, yet murder is a sin that can be forgiven (ask Moses about that one). The emotional damage that caused them to not think right and end their life will be burned away by the Lord, allowing only them in their purest and most whole condition to come into heaven - what love and grace is the burning of the chaff!
 
Paul considered himself not to be 'perfect' or mature yet, so we will all have unresolved things in our hearts and minds when we die. But anything not of the Lord will graciously be burned away so that we enter heaven without that burden: Who we really are in Christ will pass through, free from fear and worry and sins!
 
I think the larger question is...
Once we settle that Christians with unresolved sins go directly to heaven whether they lose everything but their salvation, or receive a reward, it still makes us wonder about that 'Christian' who sleeps around, bar-hops, or otherwise lives like the world.
 
If Christ is truly within them, how can they live with no apparent progress in their walk with the Lord?
 
So I must ask; Can a person have an experience with the Holy Spirit but not be born again? Can a person claim to be born again, even go to a born-again church, but not walk with the Lord in part because they aren't really born again?
 
People may have a genuine experience with the Holy Spirit, but not be born again.
Consider the person of Lydia in Acts 16:14. Paul and his group went to where Jewish women met by the river in Philippi to pray in the hopes of telling them about Jesus. We are told that Lydia was a 'worshipper of God' and listened to Paul.
 
Note - she was a worshipper of God but not born again. THEN the text says 'the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken of by Paul' Only then did she believe and was baptized. Up until that point she worshipped the God of Israel, but did not believe in Jesus. Do you know people who worship the same God, our God of Israel, but aren't born again? Lydia was one of those people before she met Paul.
 
Jesus also told the woman at the well in John 4:22 that she didn't know what she was worshipping - yet clearly she was a spiritual woman, and being a Samaritan, thought she was worshipping the one true God. Yet she didn't know what she was worshipping Jesus said. Do you think there are people in the world who worship what they think is God, but in reality they don't know what they worship? Obviously, yes.
 
Do you suppose there are people in the pews of our churches who are worshippers of God, maybe they even feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, sing the songs, donate money, yet don't open their hearts to Him?
 
Consider Judas
Judas was one of the original 12, which means he went out teamed with the others to lay hands on the sick, cast out demons, and cleanse the lepers. He was there to hear the report of the other 70 who were sent out when they all rejoiced that the demons were subject to the name of Jesus. Luke 9:1-2, 10:1, 17
 
Judas spent the same 3 1/2 years with Jesus the others did and saw all His miracles - yet he rejected the Lord and betrayed Him.
 
When I was a newly born again Christian, a family member went on a youth group retreat one weekend, and came back on fire for God. He said he didn't know what happened to him, but that he felt something he had never felt before - peace, rest, joy. But it didn't 'stick'. There was no change. He clearly experienced a touch from the Holy Spirit, but...
 
To this day some 40 years later, he doesn't know nor walk with God. He hasn't raised his kids to know the Lord, doesn't go to church, yet respects me and what I do. He had a single weekend where he experienced the Holy Spirit when he was 14, but wasn't born again.
 
There are other examples in scripture of people who had experiences with the Lord and Holy Spirit but were unchanged, but I've run out of room today. Next week I also want to address the ongoing cleansing process of the Lord in our lives which cleanses us of sins we don't even know about, and other issues. So stay tuned.
Until next week, blessings,
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and email cwowiATaol.com
 
 
 

Hi all,
Last week I listed 4 situations in which Christians in sin died, then 
asked if they are in heaven: The speeder, the bitter ex, the porn addict, the suicide. I shared how it is our recreated spirit that proves our status as God's children, thus our 'ticket' to heaven.
 
How big is your God?
If we believe heaven is to be lost by someone's death at 1 mph over the speed limit, which is on the basis of them being in sin when they died, then followed to its logical conclusion not too many believers would actually make it into heaven.
 
That would make the Father and the Lord Jesus rather small, rather limited, that they couldn't come up with a plan any better than one that gets people  born again and welcomed into the heavenly family, only to have the plan dashed  to pieces should that believer die while traveling 1 mph over the  speed limit, still have some anger towards an ex-spouse, have a hidden sin, or  purposely cut their life short. Couldn't God come up with a better plan than  that?
 
I have a pastor friend who grew up in the Nazarene denomination. He said  every Sunday he went to the altar to repent and 'get saved', because he was sure if he had committed a sin during the week and had died, he would go to  hell. He thought citizenship in heaven and status as a child of God changed with each sin/repent cycle, and he just hoped when he died he was on the 'repent' side of that cycle.
 
So how does this work?
If I know I've sinned or am sinning, but I don't deal with that  sin by asking forgiveness or in some way acknowledging it and turning my heart and mind towards righteousness, and die, do I still go to heaven?
 
If someone has a habitual sin, like my example of the heart-diseased man  with a porn addiction, does that sin have the power to taint his born-again spirit so that he won't go to heaven? Or because he is a child of God does he still go to heaven - but if that is so how does God handle that unrepented sin?
 
If a person has been through a lot in this life and only comes to God on their death-bed or after years of hardship in the world, does God expect them to have fully resolved every hurt and pain, every mistake and experience BEFORE they go to heaven - or else they won't be granted entrance?
 
Here today, gone tomorrow?
All these questions are really asking this: Does the Holy Spirit leave me each time I sin?
 
Does He stay in me if I speed a little while driving, but He might 
leave if I spoke evil of an anointed minister? Would He stay if I watched a  little porn, but leave if I had an affair? Would He stay in me if I thought about depression a lot and just wanted to end it all and get to heaven, but leave me if I actually pulled the trigger or swallowed those pills to end it all? Where is the dividing line between heaven and hell for a believer?
 
Foundation #1: Earth controls heaven
Though Jesus died on the cross roughly 2,000 years ago, you didn't become born again at your first breath. You had to make a decision later in life, meaning though you responded to the Father's invitation, you still had to decide to believe on Jesus and follow Him. Earth controlled heaven in your salvation. 
If that was not so, the God who 'wants all mankind to be saved'*, would just do it for you. (* I Timothy 2:4) 
 
If we resisted the Father's invitation for salvation until we were good and ready, this same principle extends to the smaller unresolved sins in our  lives as well - though He may be inviting us to deal with sins  and issues in our hearts and lives, we decide when and where and if we will deal with these things. Sometimes we like sin and so protect it in a  carefully guarded place in our heart no one knows about. What happens if  you die before you were ready to deal with it?
 
Whether that sin is something like bad feelings toward an ex-spouse you want to see punished just a little more and are resisting
Father's prodding to forgive, a speeding habit where you are ignoring His admonition to slow down because you like speed, or an addiction that is there because of unresolved emotional issues you aren't quite ready to face - we  control heaven's involvement in our lives.
 
To say it another way, a sinner sins because it is his nature to do so; 
A believer sins by choice. (Ephesians 2:3 says we used to be 'by nature 
children of wrath')
 
We decide to invite the Father and Lord into our little protected areas, or not. What if only He and you know about this little area - and then you die!  What will be His reaction when He sees you?
 
Foundation #2: The difference between sins and 
trespasses
Paul said in Ephesians 2: "And you He made alive when you were dead in your trespasses and sins."
 
The Lord makes a distinction between trespasses and sins, and this is seen from the Old Testament through the New. If you don't understand the difference you will misunderstand the Lord in the gospels, misunderstand the epistles, and  build a whole theology on false and incorrect beliefs. So let me clarify.
 
A sin is an act against God. We can think of a sin therefore as 
vertical.
A trespass is an act against a person. We can think of a trespass   therefore as horizontal.
This means not all sins are trespasses, but all trespasses are sins.  
   
If I trespass against another believer I have also sinned against Christ. I Cor 8:12, Rom 14:9-15 That is why all trespasses are also sins.
 
The guilt and the injury
New Testament understanding that God makes a distinction between trespasses and sins comes from the Old Testament. In Leviticus  6:1-7 we have the law of the trespass offering.
 
(I go into more detail on this in my series entitled Sermon on the 
Mount 2, which involves turning the other cheek, walking the extra mile, and other OT and cultural understandings we often missunderstand)
 
In the trespass offering the person who trespassed against a person could not be forgiven by God until and unless they had first made it right with the person they trespassed against. Not only did they have to restore whatever  they did wrong, they had to add 20% interest in a monetary fine to make sure all was now right between the 2 people. ONLY AFTER the restoration and interest  payment had been made could they come before God to get their trespass and sin  forgiven.
 
In the Father's mind, the person must mend the damage their trespass 
did to the other person - the injury - before they could be forgiven 
vertically - the guilt. Both injury and guilt must be made right for a person's life to be right before God.  
 
The Great Filter
The ramifications of God not forgiving a person's trespass unless they 
have at least tried to be forgiven by the other person can be seen in our  churches today.
 
Sister so and so bad mouths and speaks evil of another woman in the church, yet goes to church Sunday morning and sings as if she is heaven's personal  soloist, like nothing is wrong between her and the other woman out in the  congregation. Because she is the one who committed the trespass and has made no  effort to repent and make it right, God hasn't forgiven her no matter how many  octaves she can hit Sunday morning. When she gets to heaven, she will have deal with it personally with the Lord if she doesn't change.
 
When you stand praying, forgive
And this is why Jesus made the statement in Mark 11:25-26: "And when you  stand praying, forgive if you have something against another, that the Father may forgive you your trespasses. For if you don't forgive another's trespasses, neither will the Father forgive you your trespasses."
 
This is NOT heaven or hell. This is about horizontal sins, trespasses. If 
you bind up in your heart someone's trespass against you, you are tying the  Father's hands in heaven and His ability to forgive you your trespasses.  NOT SINS, but trespasses. Earth controls heaven in this case. If you do the  Lord's Prayer, "Forgive us our trespasses even as we forgive those who trespass against us" - then all is well and your life is clean before Him.
 
Full circle
For example: If the ex-wife who is still bitter in my example dies with 
that unresolved, her sins are forgiven but that one trespass is 
not - Paul says she will be saved, though that trespass will be burned away - more next week on what happens 'on the other side'.
 
Let me close with the questions I know many are asking:  
Do I have to go back 15 years to my ex and apologize that I put the burning sack of dog poop on his front step before God forgives me of that trespass? Do I  have to go back to my former pastor and apologize for what I said about him  10  years ago? How do I make it right with someone now dead?
 
The short answer is no, you don't have to run through the caverns of your memory and hunt for any hidden trespass you may have done, large or small. In  every context of this teaching by Jesus, James, and Paul, the situation calls  for immediate action, but for more distant in the past trespasses you only now  understand accurately, His grace covered your ignorance long ago. But from this time forward you know what to do. 
  
And I want to add, by saying 'As you stand praying, forgive', Jesus makes it clear forgiveness is a decision, not a feeling nor emotion. We make the  decision to forgive right away, but the feelings needing to be worked through  may take 10 years! Jesus taught forgiving someone is a decision, not an  emotion.
 
Next week: More clarity on this, and gold, silver, precious stones, or 
wood, hay and stubble. Until then, blessings
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org 
  

Hi alll,
A pastor told his congregation that if the speed limit was 55 miles per hour (90 kph) and you were driving at 56 miles per hour (91 kph) and had a wreck and died, you'd go to hell. Is that true?

A lady came to me very concerned about her mother who had died. The mom expressed faith in Christ before she died, but due to a very abusive marriage years earlier, was still bitter towards her ex-husband. She wanted to know if her mom was in heaven.

A man addicted to porn who also had a heart condition, was worried he would be sitting in front of his computer one day watching porn and have a heart attack and die. He wanted to know if he would still go to heaven if that happened.

A single lady I knew in church, who was active in church, one day committed suicide. Is she in heaven?

When Christians die with unrepented sin
Answering these questions touch on several 'hot buttons' for many - once saved always saved, the unpardonable sin, the judgement of God to name three - but let me start by saying something that may sound rather radical:

It isn't the forgiveness of your sins that gets you into heaven.

That is a shocker to many, yet it is the truth. What gets you into heaven isn't the forgiveness of your sins - your 'ticket' to heaven is something more than that.

Your 'ticket' to heaven is that your spirit has been recreated by the Holy Spirit

The Father has legally forgiven all people who have ever lived or ever will live, charging their sins to Christ on the cross instead of them. Yet Jesus said to get to heaven you must be 'born again' by the Holy Spirit, and then you will have Life. (II Corinthians 5:19, John 3:6)

So it is more than merely Jesus purchasing the forgiveness of everyone's sins who has ever lived or ever will live - that just presented the legal opportunity for people to become born again. Unfortunately some in the modern 'grace' teaching only see the sins paid for on the cross and think all therefore will end up in heaven, neglecting the fact that like anything done for another person, that person must of their own will take advantage of what was done for them.

If I put money in your bank account, that is a legal transaction, but it does you no good, it doesn't become living until you make use of the provision. Noah was a preacher of righteousness, there was room on the boat, but only the 8 in his family survived. He couldn't make everyone get into the Ark, which is a type of Christ we are told by Peter. All he could do is the legal thing to give them opportunity. As it was with the type, so it is with the True. (I Peter 3:20-22)

Say it another way
The only people in heaven are family of the King. Barb and I have 3 sons, and there is a little of us in each of them. That is natural family. The Father has children too, and to be part of His family there has to be a little of Him in each of His kids. That is the Holy Spirit.

There are only 2 ways to become part of a family: By birth, and by adoption. We've been both born into the family and adopted by Him. It is the answer to 'Who's your daddy' that determines heaven or hell.

"...but you have received the Spirit of adoption in which we cry, 'Abba, Father'. The (Holy) Spirit Himself testifies to (with) our spirit, saying that we are the children of God." Romans 8:15-16

"And it was of His own free will that He gave us brith as sons by His Word of Truth, so that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures, a sample of what He created to be consecrated to Himself." James 1:18

There are numerous other scriptures which state the same thing - your 'right' to heaven is because you were legally adopted through the cross of Jesus, and then born into the adopting family by the Holy Spirit.

If Jesus' sacrifice on the cross ONLY bought the forgiveness of sins but not the new birth, no one would go to heaven. Fortunately we cannot separate the two.

The earnest money
"The Spirit is God's down payment, earnest money, which guarantees that He will give us the inheritance that He promised and that He has purchased us to be His own people." Ephesians 1:14

It is interesting to note the word 'earnest' was in Paul's time 'earnest money', and the understood reference by his original readers. It means the same thing it means to us today - a down payment given as a promise of fulfilling the whole deal. All we have in Christ is from the Father's point of view, mere earnest money down to take us 'off the market' and as a foretaste of what He has for us in the ages to come. WOW!

Live by this and you will have peace 
Paul wrote the Galatians because they had left grace and gone back into legalism. He contrasts the law and grace, flesh and (S)spirit, and emphasizes NOT that their sins have been forgiven, but that they were born of the Spirit and are now the family of God.

He concluded his letter by saying this: "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision (being a Jew), nor un-circumcision (Gentile) means anything, but a new creation. As many as live by this rule, peace is on them, and the Israel of God." Galatians 6:15-16

If this doesn't make it clear Paul taught there are only 2 races of people in the earth, born of God and not born of God - he said it a different way earlier:

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female: For you are all one in Christ Jesus." 3:28

All people are the creatures of God, but only people born of the Spirit are children of God

There is great peace in knowing this. There is no race, no nationality, no soci-economic considerations that really matter - it is only a matter of have you been born of the Spirit, or not?

Paul said in 6:16 'As many as live by this rule, peace is on them...' This RULE. This is the Greek word 'kanon', or the English, canon. It was a straight rod used as we would use a yard or meter stick today. It was a carpenter's tool, used to measure all things by it because of its unerring straightness.

Paul said this fact, that the only thing that matters is the new creation in Christ, is a rule by which all else can be measured.

How this helps
If you are grounded in the fact your spirit has been recreated by God's Spirit, it ends the tendency to go back to religious legalism - which is why Paul dwelt on this truth to the Galatians. Christ in you is the measuring stick by which all else is measured.

How can any teaching, any religious exercise, improve on Christ in you? If you hear a 'prophet' say 'Pray this for 7 days then do this...', you will recognize it as a false teaching for those edicts can't do more for you than Christ who is in you.

If someone tells you in order to please God you must worship on a particular day and not do this or that, you will recognize Christ is in you 24/7 so picking one day as holier than others is ridiculous - You are already a new creation in Him; do people really think worshipping on one day rather than another improves on that?

If you hear someone say you have to do this or that for an open heaven, you'll recognize that as error since Christ is in you already - heaven is completely open to you 24/7 - so jumping through religious hoops adds nothing to Christ in you.  

Paul used 'kanon', the measuring stick, because this is the guiding line for salvation in Christ alone, separate from religious works.

This is why....

This is why he said in II Corinthians 5:16-17: "From this point on I know no person by fleshly standards, but by the Spirit...for if any person is in Christ, they are a new creation; Old things have passed away and behold! All things have become new!"

This must be our foundational understanding, which is God's point of view: There are only 2 types of people in the earth; those who have been recreated by the Spirit, and those who haven't. All people have legally been forgiven, but some have received the benefits of the legal action of the cross, making the truth of the cross Alive and their spirits have been recreated. THAT is your ticket to heaven. You are right now a citizen of heaven. You are right now already in eternity. You don't die and pass on to eternity - you are already in eternity as a child of the Father, a member of His household, a citizen of His kingdom. (Hebrews 12:22-23)

So we return to an accident at 56 mph or 91 kph in a posted 55 mph or 90 kph. We return to the old lady who loves God but struggles with bitterness towards her ex-husband. We return to the man with the heart condition falling over dead in front of a porn site on his computer. And we must not forget the woman who ended her life with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Are they in heaven, even with those sins a present reality in their lives?

We've laid a foundation - you don't go to heaven because Jesus forgave your sins, you get to heaven because your spirit has been recreated by the Holy Spirit. There are therefore only 2 races of people on the planet; citizens of heaven, and citizens of hell. And that's where we'll pick it up next week. Until then, think on these things, blessings

John Fenn
www.cwowi.org

Hi all,
Last week I shared how Jesus came with grace and truth; grace being a quality of God's heart, truth being the walking out of grace - embodied in the person of Jesus Christ. This grace and truth then flows to us for we are in Him and He in us.

I talked about the qualities of grace, including that grace teaches, grace always has purpose, and grace establishes the heart.

Accountability and grace
The common theme that runs through many hyper-grace believers involves lack of accountability. Whether that is ultimate justification - all people end up in heaven in the end, or believing there is no such thing as sin therefore you can do what you what when you want, or somewhere in between like selectively deleting parts of the Bible to fit their belief system like I John or the gospels - the thread through all is no accountability.

And some go the other direction, seeing anything but grace as 'the law' and therefore not under anyone's particular authority, for anything or anyone that sounds like what they perceive as legalism is something to corrected, shouted down, or run from with all haste.

Yet you cannot have grace without accountability. Just as truth, teaching, purpose, and the ability to establish the heart are 'imbedded' and inherently part of grace, so too is accountability. This is easily understood in the natural, so let me give some examples. 

Going steady?
The summer I turned 16, 1974, is when Barb and I started dating. By the time school started and with her attending the big city school with over 900 kids in her class, and me in my country school with 200 in my class, I wanted to go 'steady' so guys in her school would know she was off the market. At least that was part of my motive - the biggest motive is I fell head over heels for her and vice versa - but to protect that...

I was as nervous as a bug in a yard full of chickens as we sat in my car and I stumbled over 6 little words, trying to say in order: "Will you go steady with me?" Somehow 'Will' and 'me' and 'steady' fell over themselves on the way out my mouth, and Barb, who knew what I was trying to say while also staring down my new class ring, took the ring from my hands she said - "You want to go steady with me, John, is that what you're trying to spit out?" As her sentence ended my class ring was already on her finger - I think that was a yes! She has always been direct...lol.

Going steady was grace. We each felt we'd met someone special and maybe they were 'it'. We 'liked' each other enough to be exclusive - that ring she wrapped blue angora yarn around it until it fit on her finger was a signal to other guys at her big high school - hands off, she belongs to someone else. Sometimes she wore it as a necklace, but it was a sign of grace - and accountability.

Within that grace we were each active in our schools. We interacted with many different students both boys and girls. Grace has a lot of freedom within it. But there are borders to all grace, for there are no examples of grace without accountability anywhere in life or the Bible.

IF she or I had been unfaithful to the grace we gave each other in our hearts, there would have been a huge 'scene', a huge fight - because grace has accountability built in. Had one of us every been unfaithful to our 'going steady' it would have hurt! Grace requires it be lived responsibly.

Grandad's Volkswagen
My grandfather owned a 1967 Volkswagen Beetle, or 'bug', and while that sounds like an old car, in the winter of 1974/75 that car was only 7 years old. My penny pinching (didn't like to spend money) grandfather was a doctor and lived 3 blocks from the hospital and a couple miles from his office - so the VW had low miles. As he retired and declined in health to the point he could no longer drive, mom inherited the VW, but I drove it every chance I got. It was a fun car! Mom giving me permission to drive granddad's car was grace, and I had a lot of freedom as a result.

But here is the 'truth' part of grace, the walking out the grace responsibly. The winters of '74//75 and '75/'76 provided ample opportunity for Barb and I to take that car and go sliding around my high school parking lot covered with ice and snow. I'd get the car up to maybe 30mph (50kph) just as we hit the ice, from then it was only a matter of turning the wheel and hitting the brakes, or giving it some gas, to spin like an Olympic ice skater.

I gained a lot of experience and skill for driving on ice and snow as I learned how that car behaved, but this is how it ended: As I was sliding sideways at about 30mph I ran out of ice. The tires bit into the pavement and granddad's car was up on 2 wheels for what seemed an eternity.

Barb screamed, my life flashed before my eyes - I was young so it was a short show - but still I remember thinking in a flash there's no way to explain my granddad's VW crumpled like a hard boiled egg about to be peeled to my grandfather or my mom. I thought of Barb and how her head would hit the side of the car and be hurt - and just as suddenly we landed hard on all four tires in a sudden stop.

I had reached the limits of grace. I had forgotten about the fact the grace of driving granddad's car also carried responsibility to granddad and mom - I was young enough up to that point only to think of the freedom of grace.

Grace in the natural comes first from the Father
In the same way we understand examples of grace above, we can also understand and trace the spiritual roots of grace - like parents loving children because that love originated long ago in the heavenly Father's love for His Son and spiritual children, so too does grace in the natural originate in the unseen realm of the Father.

When you are offered a job, that is grace. But grace has expectations and accountability - you had better do the job or the grace for you to work there is retracted. You buy a house or car with a loan or mortgage note, and that is grace. But if you fail to meet the payments grace is retracted and you are held accountable for the whole amount.

What Jesus meant when He said He fulfills the law
When Jesus said in Matthew 5:17 He came not to abolish the law and prophets, but to fulfill them, He put it in terms easy for us to understand.

Buying that car or house by a loan is like being under the law. Within the law is great grace - you can drive that car or live in that house and call them your own as long as you make the payments. The flip side of the law is when a person fails to make those payments.

In my parable the payments on the car or house are like the Old Testament offerings and other requirements to remain in good standing with God - or with the car company or mortgage company - like maintaining the house, having insurance on both that will reimburse the mortgage/note holder, and so on.

But when you pay off the car and house what happens to the contract? What happens to the mortgage note and closing papers you've had in your files all those years? What happens is you own them. They are yours. You have not done away with the loans, pretending they don't exist. You have fulfilled them - you become owners of the paperwork.

Now what?
At this point some in hyper-grace would say that I am correct - by owning the paperwork, the mortgage note, I am no longer under the bounds of those contracts - and they are correct. And that is used to justify either (take your pick) no hell, no I John 1:9, no accountability to anyone, no need to confess/admit sin, and so forth.

But the reality is that now that you own the car and house outright, you CAN do what you want with them - Wreck the car, burn the house to the ground, whatever you wish. You CAN do that. But the greater truth is that now as owner of the notes, you have a responsibility to be a good steward of the car and home because a great price was paid for them, with many sacrifices.

Sure, you CAN burn the house down, and you CAN break the car on purpose - but that dishonors the price paid, the fact you now own something worth living for and taking care of, and the responsible person will continue to care for their car and home even more now that it is all theirs.

Romans 6
Paul puts it another way in Romans 6:1-2: "Shall we go on sinning that grace may increase?" And his answer: "By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?"

And that's the point - Grace can be turned into a license for sin, as Jude 4 says some do, or grace can be used to step up in faith, to step out of sin - and as seen last week, it does so by teaching us to avoid ungodliness and teaches us what we have in Christ, and is always revealing the Father's purpose while establishing us.

Modern Gnosticism
In the days the New Testament was being written the hyper-grace teaching was running rampant, just as in our day. In fact I John and James and much of what Paul wrote were written to counter hyper-grace - and just as now many want to delete those passages/books from the New Testament.

The hyper-grace teaching then is what we call Gnosticism. That name comes from the Greek 'gnosis' which means 'to know'. But 'to know' doesn't say it accurately enough. In English we can say we know something without experiencing it personally, like 'I know Nigeria is in Africa' without having ever been there.

Gnosis is based on personal knowledge - 'I know Nigeria is in Africa and I've been there'. That means Gnosticism is based on a mystical knowledge adherents claim to have - they KNOW better than you, a higher knowledge. First century Gnostics believed the body is inherently evil and will return to earth, and since Christ lives in your spirit, you can do what you want with your body because it is going back to dust anyway.

That is the root spirit behind modern hyper-grace teaching - Christ lives in you so nothing else really matters, so live how you like and you'll be fine.

So thank you!
I love history, and I enjoy living history museums. So when I run into or hear of someone caught up in hyper-grace today, it is like looking back in time to see the same error Paul and James and John taught and wrote against - like that person is a living museum, willingly giving themselves over to a very ancient spirit masquerading as the Holy Spirit. And I marvel, and I grieve, and I learn.

I feel so sorry for those who use grace as a means to justify not growing up in Christ. They are missing so much life in Christ. But I think one reason people look for reasons to justify their sin may be because the traditional church has given them 'church' experiences, but not God experiences, for to know Him is to want to leave all else by the way side and be like Him.

If we can understand...
So if we can understand that grace in the natural has accountability built into it - the grace of relationships, the grace of having a job, the grace of driving a car or owning a residence - and the flip side of accountability in relationships, in the work place, in the owning of a car or home, then why do people lose all common sense when it comes to spiritual teaching?

Grace empowers...the Spirit of Truth lives within. When you sin and feel that grievance, apologize for it, don't pretend that sin didn't happen or doesn't exist. And that leads me to next week's topic...when Christians die with unresolved sin. Until then! Blessings,

John Fenn
www.cwowi.org