Ready for a Challenge?

Pure Grace, The Life Changing Power of Uncontaminated Grace, is my latest eye-opening find. Clark Whitten, writing with sparkling clarity concerning the gospel and its multi-faceted simplicity, has opened my eyes wider to our glorious Savior Christ Jesus. The brief passages included here should refresh you even as they challenge some mindsets – but that’s a good thing. If you are challenged or encouraged (or both) by what you read, purchase the e-book or the print version to read it in its entirety. You won’t be disappointed.

Sin, for the Christian, is a violation of friendship – relationship – not a violation of the law. Christians are not under the jurisdiction of the Old Testament law. Many believe and teach grace without law is a pathway to sinful behavior. They see grace and law as “balance.” The Apostle Paul saw it as “mixture.” ¹

What is salvation? Many would say it is getting me out of earth and into Heaven, but that is not salvation. It may be one result of salvation, but it is not salvation. Salvation is not getting me out of earth and into Heaven; salvation is getting God out of Heaven and into me! ²

. . . the only way to sin against grace is to refuse to receive the grace it cost Jesus His life to give. Our only hope of “putting to death the deeds of the body [flesh]” (Rom. 8:13) is receiving the abundance of grace.³

True repentance cannot be achieved by a response to condemnation. Condemnation has no place in a believer’s thinking. If it is present, you can rest assured it did not come from the Holy Spirit. Condemnation has its source in the kingdom of darkness and is ministered by demons. When a person is born again, that person is translated from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of God’s dear Son. There is no condemnation in His Kingdom! (See Romans 8:1.) ⁴

If I am a believer, I am in Christ and there is no safer place to be! I will die when He dies – and He lives forever. I will be condemned when He is condemned – and that is impossible. I lose my position at the right hand of the Father when He loses His position there. I lose my inheritance when He loses His – and that is never going to happen. I am as secure as He is secure. I repeat, there is no safer or more secure place to be than in Christ! ⁵

1. Introduction, p.20 
2. A Grace Reformation, p.30
3. Receiving the Abundance of Grace, p.42
4. Like Rats in a Maze, p.108
5. Saved Completely, p.131-132

P.S. I was not asked to endorse this book, or paid for it in any way.

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It’s Empty, but I’m Not!

Here is a Wow! thought I’m still pondering.  I think of this earth as being so big – and it is.  I think of the billions of people on this earth as being so many – and we are.  Then I think of the world – the entire cosmos – with all its planets, stars, constellations, and galaxies, and realize just how small is the earth, and how miniscule the inhabitants in comparison to the vast sum of the universe.

Yet, Creator God, our heavenly Father, chose earth for humanity.  He chose earth for relationship.  He chose earth for His Son to be born, live, and die on.  And, out of the entire universe – before He ever created any of it – He saw me living on planet earth in 2011, and knew I would need Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross.

Compared to the vastness of all He created, this one human being isn’t even a speck.  But Daddy doesn’t compare me to anyone or anything.  He sees me, Kay Stocking, and He loves me – fully, unconditionally, and eternally.  For God so loved Kay . . .¹ Wow!

That place of the skull, Golgotha, is but the end of a street outside Jerusalem now.  That nearby garden tomb is empty now.  This life that was empty and meaningless before, though, is now full and overflowing forever – because of the finished work of my Jesus Christ!  Glory be to my God!  Glory be to my Savior!

“You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here.”  Mark 16:6 NIV

¹ John 3:16

It’s Harvest Time!

John 4:35 “ . . .I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.”

Something has really stirred in me concerning the kinds of prayers we are praying for the harvest of souls in these last days compared to what Jesus said.  Maybe you’ve heard these phrases prayed, or even prayed something similar yourself.  “God, bring in the harvest!”  “We call for the harvest to come in.”  “God, make them ready.”  While these prayers come from the sincere hearts of those who want people to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, they are unscriptural – do not agree with what the Word says – so they are ineffective.

The harvest is ready already.  If it was true when Jesus walked the earth, it is still true today.  Let’s think about it.  When a natural field is ready for harvest, does the farmer – even the most God-fearing among them – stand in his barn and beg God to bring in the harvest for him?  No.  Neither does he command the harvest to pull itself up and come into the barn.  The farmer, along with others who help, goes out with the proper equipment and harvests those crops, bringing them into the barn.

Matthew 9:37-38 “³⁷ Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. ³⁸ Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

This is a prayer we can pray concerning the harvest that will definitely be answered.  Jesus made it very clear that we are to ask the Lord of the harvest to send forth workers into His harvest field.  He didn’t say to ask Him to ripen the crops, or bring them into our churches so our pastors can lead them in the sinner’s prayer.  He didn’t even say to call for the evangelists to go.  He said to ask the Lord to send workers.  It’s very simple, but when you pray this prayer, remember that you might be one of the workers you’re praying for.

Mark 16:15-16 “¹⁵ He (Jesus) said to them (disciples), “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. ¹⁶ Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”  (Words in parentheses are inserted for clarification and underlined for emphasis.)

Jesus told us, those who follow Him, to go into all the world – where the harvest is.  He’s given us all the tools we need (His Word and the Holy Spirit), but He will not do it for us, nor will He have the harvest come to us.  Those who believe the gospel we share, when we go, will be harvested for eternal life.  Jesus wants passionately for the lost to hear and believe, and He wants passionately for us to be the ones who take the gospel to them.  He said, “Go!”  And He said, “Pray for more to go.”  It’s harvest time!