Anatomy of Grace Part 3 - How the enemy perverts God’s Grace.

James 4:13–15 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that." 

Assumptions can be the source of huge mistakes and "self-inflicted" suffering. This combination of emotional process and mindset is manipulated by the Adversary to move us in the wrong direction, make a bad decision, or "think" that God agrees with what we are doing. I remember as a funny example, I was discipling a man named Jun in one of the poorest areas in Manila. Every day I would arrive just as he was having his lunch, a very simple sandwich. He always offered me the sandwich (very Filipino), and I would say "no thank you." He would offer 3 times (also very Filipino). He always assumed I would say "no thank you." One day on his 3rd offer, I reached over and grabbed the sandwich, took a bite, and said, "Thank you!" The shock in Jun's face made me laugh so hard that I could not continue chewing. I pulled another sandwich out with Jun's favorite fix-ins, and we enjoyed a lunch together.

 

 Jun's "assumption" set up a great joke, but our assumptions of how God should be, how He should act, and how our life should be can place us on a road that leads to disaster.

 

I encountered a very famous Christian, we had a 2-hour discussion concerning suffering and God's part in that. In the middle of his concert, he shared this thought: "God is a Father that loves His children and would never want them to suffer." After the show, we met backstage and shared dinner. He asked me what I thought about his statement. I shared "gently" that I believe that is a "lie" straight from hell. If God did not allow the suffering of His children, there would be no salvation. In fact, in His plan of redemption, God not only allowed suffering, He caused it! Jesus did not suffer only the Adversary's wrath and man's wrath; He bore God's wrath to pay the debt of sin in full! 

 

Therefore, Satan has invested so much time in the Health, Wealth, Prosperity movement; to create assumptions concerning God's grace! Sadly, many believers have moved from authentic "faith" to Intimidation, demands, answers to prayer based on their own will, not God's will. The idea that individuals who have trusted in Christ travel this world in a "mystic bubble" around them so they cannot be touched by the troubles every other human being faces is not only unbiblical, it is antibiblical! From Genesis to Revelation, it is clear that, while we have an intimate relationship with the Eternal, Sovereign Lord, which impacts every area of our life. However, nowhere does Scripture state, or even hint at, the idea that we escape the woes of this world. In fact, Jesus in the Gospels goes out of His way to give His followers the "heads up" that we will see troubles. 

 

The infection in the Body of Christ of this mindset produces several paths that are very dangerous; I feel led to discuss them in detail in following Devos. These paths are: 1. False expectations, 2. Perversion and manipulation of Scripture, 3. A "me first" mentality, 4. A path that leads to doubting God. 5. A faith that demands God perform.  

 

Before I investigate those aspects, let me just share this: no matter where you are on your path in life, the grace of God is there, and all you have to do is follow Him, no matter what your emotions say, no matter how much your flesh screams out for its rights and what is "fair" or the way you think things should go. To receive God's grace does not take pressing forward. Instead, it requires bending backward to yield to His leading. When you finally do arrive, Christ will be there! As for me, at the end of this journey, which I think I will finish, because I am confident in the work He is doing in me, also, I don't want the work that I alone would produce, the flesh never produces anything righteous and eternal! I will then find myself at the scared feet of Jesus Christ, and I will fall forward on my face with thanksgiving because He had a perfect plan the whole time and all He wanted me to do was follow… Sounds so easy, doesn't it? But we all know it isn't. Do not lose heart; keep your focus on who Jesus is and just follow what He's asking you to do one step at a time. Then you will experience God's riches and His grace in His timing and in a way that leads you to eternal fruit, not temporal happiness, which is fleeting