The Free Gift of Grace Comes with an Obligation ~ blog

I am afraid that many believers want the free gift of salvation through faith in Christ with no strings attached. We want our eternal life but until we get there, we would like to do what we have planned for our lives. We have dreams and aspirations, and many have the freedom and opportunity to pursue our plans for our life.

We have made the gospel all about salvation being a free gift but have discovered we need more than just the promise of forgiveness and eternal life. Becoming a believer puts us into an adversarial role with the world, the devil, and our flesh. Therefore, we now have a battle on our hands…a big and long battle.

The primary battle comes from our flesh or sinful nature wanting to respond to the temptations of this world. Our flesh craves sin and when we cave into its cravings, we can become addicted to what this world has made available. And as we have been learning addictions are a powerful force and extremely hard to stop.

Now it might not be helpful to tell you this…nevertheless it is true. God has bought us. He has redeemed us from sin and death and given you forgiveness and eternal life. The price was for the eternal Son of God completely becoming a human being beginning as a fertilized egg in the womb of Mary, being knitted together in her womb, just like we were, and being born into this world as an infant.

Then He lived for about 33+ years showing us and teaching us about Himself and the Father and how we should live as followers of Him. Then, He paid the price that was owed because of our sins through being slaughtered on the Cross. All of our sins were placed on Him and His death was payment for all of our sins. He paid the price for us and now we are His. He bought us and therefore He owns us.

Some of you might recoil at such an idea. Given many live in the illusion that we are free to live life as we please. However, biblically that does not seem to be the case. I have many freedoms. I chose which shirt I would wear today and what I want to eat. On the outside, we have made our lives look as good as we can so people will think we are successful and a good person while we know what goes on in the dark and isolated times or our addiction.

So, God loves us, chose us, died for us, rose again for us, has given to us the gift of salvation, sealed us with the Holy Spirit, and has for us eternal life in heaven for infinity.

All free…man that is the greatest deal of all time.

Now let me interrupt your blessed assurance and let you know that because of all God has done in purchasing us back from sin and death…He now owns us. We are His children. We are His people and His gift of eternal life will be greater than anything we can think or imagine…and oh, by the way…will last forever and ever and ever and ever.

We find ourselves locked in a battle with our flesh and over the years we have become addicted to porn and sex and these eternal truths I have been writing about seem unreal because of the present battle we are in with our flesh. Instead of JOY, we live in shame. Instead of experiencing freedom, we are entangled in this sin that so easily has entangled us. We realize this is not how the Christian life is supposed to be working.

We know what we should do but end up doing what we know we should not do. We know the good we should be doing but find ourselves choosing the evil we hate. And we feel like Paul who cried out in Romans 7:21-24; 

“So, I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?”

In solving this dilemma, he writes Romans 8. And it is this most excellent chapter of God’s truth we learn what we need to learn to overcome our enemies of the world, the flesh, and the devil. We are going to hear about the unconditional love of God the Father for us and that there is absolutely nothing that can separate us from His love. We have been chosen, justified, and will be glorified.

However, to really experience that life God truly has for all of us we need to understand one very important thing. I am going to tell you, but you will not want to hear it. You already know it but do not want to do it. It is a thing that we chaff under in so many other things in life.

It pops our bubble of thinking that we are the masters of our fate and the captains of our souls. And it is tucked away in a part of Romans 8 that is not so clear and easy to understand. It is found in Romans 8:12-13;

“Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation…” 

We have an obligation. We have a duty and responsibility. We have received the eternal gift of salvation with all of its forgiveness, mercy, grace, and eternal life but perhaps you did not read the fine print at the end of The Four Spiritual Laws. He has done everything and paid for everything that needed to be done and paid.

But eternal life and salvation come with an obligation. And isn’t that true of almost anything in life? Marriage comes with a huge list of obligations. Having children comes with absolute duties that we must carry out for our baby to grow up and be healthy. Every player on every sports team has obligations that they must keep in order to stay on the team.

We are not on a team…we are members of God’s family. We are His sons and daughters and have been given the free gift of eternal salvation and forgiveness of all of our sins, accomplished for us by the Son of God Himself dying in our place.  And with the Christian life comes obligations. Not so that we can remain in His family but so that we can be sons and daughters in good standing and thereby able to be blessed to accomplish His Will for us.

Tomorrow we will learn about our obligation and how that is essential if we are going to experience God’s fullness and freedom in the battle with our flesh.

 

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