Rev_Rick

How to Live Grace-filled Lives



Have you ever blown it big-time-and in a significant way? What did you do? Did you confess it right away? Or did you cover it up for a while and let the guilt and shame of your circumstance eat you up inside?


You see, every time we try to cover up our mistakes, the consequences of the cover-up are always more devastating than the actual sin. So how do you get beyond the big mistakes-how do you recover?


We can learn a lot by looking at the life of David. David was a mighty warrior whom God chose to be the king of Israel. David, of all the great men of the Bible, is known as the man after God's heart-he was wholeheartedly devoted to God. But David also blew it big-time.


In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.


One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?? Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (She had purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, I am pregnant? (2 Samuel 11:1-5).


David's first big mistake was adultery. He had an affair with Bathsheba who was married to Uriah the Hittite-and to top it off, Bathsheba ended up pregnant. Her husband was at war, so everyone was going to know that it wasn't his child. So what did David do? He confessed right? Not hardly. He tried to cover it up.


So David sent this word to Joab: Send me Uriah the Hittite. And Joab sent him to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, Go down to your house and wash your feet. So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master's servants and did not go down to his house.


When David was told, Uriah did not go home, he asked him, haven’t you just come from a distance? Why didn't you go home?


Uriah said to David, The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my master Joab and my lord's men are camped in the open fields. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!?


Then David said to him, stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back. So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. At David's invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master's servants; he did not go home.


In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. In it he wrote, Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.


So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David's army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.


Joab sent David a full account of the battle. He instructed the messenger: When you have finished giving the king this account of the battle, the king's anger may flare up, and he may ask you, why did you get so close to the city to fight? Didn't you know they would shoot arrows from the wall? Who killed Abimelech son of Jerub-Besheth? Didn't a woman throw an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you get so close to the wall?' If he asks you this, then say to him, also, your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead'? (2 Samuel 11:6-17).


So David's cover-up of his adultery ended in murder. Now, to top off the guilt of his affair, he has to deal with being a murderer too. Did he pay a price? Yes. But David had a friend named Nathan who helped him see what he needed to see and he repented. He got clean-he got real with God-and he was forgiven.


He made a really big mistake, and he really failed, but God forgave and restored. So what about you? What do you need to repent of in your life? In what areas do you need to be restored?


Before we look at the process of restoration, I'd like to give you a clear understanding of what grace is.


- Grace is the unmerited and unconditional love of God toward us.

- Grace is free to us but costly to God.

- Grace produces gratitude toward God and love toward other people.


Forgiveness is available. God can make us white as snow. You can be restored. The process may be painful at times, and you may have to go back and say I'm sorry. You may have to have a heart-to-heart with your wife or some of your kids; you may have to go an employer and tell them what you did and return some money. You may have to do something that feels so humbling, but then you're free-you've come clean.


And aren't you tired of hiding and living a double life anyway? And the dissonance that's in your heart-the lack of freedom when you worship because you always know there's something you haven't been willing to deal with.


God offers us another promise in Scripture. John 3:16-17 states: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.


He didn't come to condemn, but to save. For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith? (Ephesians 2:8). See, the picture is very, very clear. We have a problem and God has a solution. All of us have fallen short of God's glory.


When God looks at all of us, He sees that barrier-and that barrier breaks the relationship for all time. But Jesus came and bore your sin. He became your substitute.


He came to die on the cross for the person sitting in your seat; all that you've ever done, all that you have ever thought, all that you have ever said that violates God's holy law of absolute purity is a sin and produces a barrier between you and Him. As Jesus hung on the cross, and He chose to be there, your sin, my sin, and the sins of the whole world came upon Him.


How do you put this into practice as a believer?


1. Choose to believe that with God your failure is never final.

2. Remove the power of the secret and the power of condemnation by practicing repentance and confession with some mature brothers or sisters in Christ whom you can trust.

3. Refuse to continue living with the performance-orientation in your relationship with God.


You were created to receive grace, and you were created to give grace. At the heart of performance is pride. You might be thinking, But I want to earn my way, or? I don't need other people. That's why the prerequisite to grace is humility.


God has done something for you that you'll never be able to do by yourself. And He expects you to give that same grace to others. What would happen if you started just giving to people that which they don't deserve?


Freely you receive, Jesus said, freely give. (Matthew 10:8).

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A brother in Christ

If you want to show grace ... why not goto romans 6, eph 1

2 peter 3:18
2 tim 2:1

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2 tim 2:1 Thou therefore, my son, be impowered by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

Boanerges

Thanks Pastor Rick- Awesome!

Housesitter

Rev Rick,
THANK YOU
That is a very wonderful and powerful reminder of the fantastic God we serve.
Without His grace we have no hope.
Ray

__________________
Ray
Enjoy a rent free holiday with
Christian House Sitters
www.christian-housesitters.com

violet

A brother in Christ

eph 4:32 And be ye kind one to another[believers] tender hearted[good souled] forgiving[grace] yourself, even as God the Father for Christ's sake hath forgiven[graced] you.

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2 tim 2:1 Thou therefore, my son, be impowered by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

Angelwings

Wow...Thank you so much for that!!!!

This is just what i have been searching for...A place where i can learn more and talk with other Christians.