God's grace and your obedience

Man, Sin, & Salvation
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JacobMartinMertens
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God's grace and your obedience

Post by JacobMartinMertens » Thu Feb 04, 2016 6:14 pm

It is true that God's grace exists. We ought to do what we do in sharing the gospel of grace in grace.

Does God's grace provide the setting for our obedience? Certainly we don't want to obey without grace, the grace we show (as a result of experiencing God's grace), and not without God's grace upon and in our life.

If you know you are forgiven and have eternal life, can you be obedient to God?

Some say they can't be obedient to God. But God wants us to be obedient to Him. Some learn of God's grace as they do what they need to do to be obedient. Understanding God's grace helps with understand how we are to be obedient. We ought to be obedient to God in the true grace and love of God, which He has for us, and which we ought to live out in our relationships or interactions with others.
John 1:41, 49 NASB - 41 He found first his own brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which translated means Christ). 49 - Nathanael answered Him, "Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel."

dizerner

Re: God's grace and your obedience

Post by dizerner » Thu Feb 04, 2016 6:33 pm

On a scale of 1 to 10 how obedient do you think you are to God's Word, 10 being perfect obedience to what it commands us.

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JacobMartinMertens
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Re: God's grace and your obedience

Post by JacobMartinMertens » Thu Feb 04, 2016 6:45 pm

dizerner wrote:On a scale of 1 to 10 how obedient do you think you are to God's Word, 10 being perfect obedience to what it commands us.
Obedience to God is not measured by how many commands we obey or how many good things we have done. What is the rationale for your scale? Either a person is obedient to God or not. Either we are obedient to the individual commands of God or we are not. Some people think we can be more obedient to God, while others believe we need to try to be obedient to God. Jesus was perfectly obedient to God. Therefore, I am not and have not been perfectly obedient as I have sin and He did not and does not have sin. I believe my sin has been forgiven by God. If we can walk in newness of life that means we can obey God without regret. The regret would be from being imperfect. But if you can obey God, having been forgiven, you should not have any reason to rebel against God (knowing His love for you, and having been rescued already from rebellion) there should be no regrets. Not the same for the unsaved person trying to obey God. We are called by God to be perfect (as our heavenly Father is perfect). So we are to be perfect. This is not to prove that a person cannot obey God. If you are a believer you can obey God in simplicity, as difficult as it might be in your circumstances or situation. So, if you know you are obeying God in truth, you know that you can do more (not just do better). If you can obey God better than you already do, that is hope and strength in the things of God. It is not legalism or a legalistic attitude of someone trying to obtain salvation or be justified or sanctified by their works. Salvation is in what Jesus did alone. We obey God in faith.

Would you ever tell an unbeliever about God's commands or about His Law? Would you do so if you believe you are a believer but that you don't believe you obey God?
John 1:41, 49 NASB - 41 He found first his own brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which translated means Christ). 49 - Nathanael answered Him, "Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel."

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Paidion
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Re: God's grace and your obedience

Post by Paidion » Thu Feb 04, 2016 7:50 pm

ENABLING GRACE

For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all people, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and to live sensible, righteous, and devout lives in the present age, expecting the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of the great God and of our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good works. Declare these things; encourage and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you. (Titus 2:11-15)

How do we appropriate this enabling grace? We appropriate it through faith. Jesus died to provide this enabling grace, and by trusting Him to do so, it becomes a reality in our lives.

Many think “δικαιοσυνη,” The Greek word translated as “justification” to mean “being counted as righteous,” whether we are righteous or not. But the word often means “being made righteous.”

Working together [with Him], we entreat you not to accept the grace of God to no purpose. (2 Cor 6:1)

If we try to accept God's grace in our lives without allowing it to purify us, to render us righteous, then we are accepting it to no purpose.

We must coöperate with God's enabling grace. We alone cannot achieve consistent righteousness. And God alone will not cause us to be righteous. He respects our ability to choose too much for that. We must coöperate with God's enabling grace.

This coöperation with God is known as “synergy.” This English word comes from the Greek word “working together.” (συνεργουντες)

A particular group of denominations push “monergy.” This is the idea God did all the work concerning our righteousness, that we have no part in it at all. No wonder so many fall away, thinking that what they choose to do has no bearing on their standing with God.

However, I think the apostle Paul had it right. Concerning deliverance from wrongdoing, we need to work together with God, and so not accept the grace of God to no purpose.
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

Avatar shows me at 75 years old. I am now 83.

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JacobMartinMertens
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Re: God's grace and your obedience

Post by JacobMartinMertens » Thu Feb 04, 2016 7:55 pm

My understanding is that God's grace is not even conditioned upon our acceptance of it.
John 1:41, 49 NASB - 41 He found first his own brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which translated means Christ). 49 - Nathanael answered Him, "Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel."

dizerner

Re: God's grace and your obedience

Post by dizerner » Thu Feb 04, 2016 7:59 pm

JacobMartinMertens wrote: Therefore, I am not and have not been perfectly obedient as I have sin and He did not and does not have sin.
So then perfect obedience isn't necessary. How much is necessary do you think?

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JacobMartinMertens
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Re: God's grace and your obedience

Post by JacobMartinMertens » Thu Feb 04, 2016 8:00 pm

dizerner wrote:
JacobMartinMertens wrote: Therefore, I am not and have not been perfectly obedient as I have sin and He did not and does not have sin.
So then perfect obedience isn't necessary. How much is necessary do you think?
Are you asking if God wants you to obey Him or are you asking if your obedience leads to salvation? No one is saved by works.
John 1:41, 49 NASB - 41 He found first his own brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which translated means Christ). 49 - Nathanael answered Him, "Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel."

dizerner

Re: God's grace and your obedience

Post by dizerner » Thu Feb 04, 2016 8:35 pm

JacobMartinMertens wrote:
dizerner wrote:
JacobMartinMertens wrote: Therefore, I am not and have not been perfectly obedient as I have sin and He did not and does not have sin.
So then perfect obedience isn't necessary. How much is necessary do you think?
Are you asking if God wants you to obey Him or are you asking if your obedience leads to salvation? No one is saved by works.
So obedience is not necessary for salvation, but we should do it anyway? In some sense I could agree with that. Here's the thing: trusting in Jesus is binary. It's a 0 or 1 value, I either am or I am not trusting in Jesus. But when you talk about obedience and works, it's not binary. I can obey to varying degrees, I can love God to varying degrees, and do the things I should to varying degrees, and we both agree no one does it perfectly. Here is my suggestion to you: you want to the right thing (spiritual fruit) but how is that going to happen for us when need a miracle to change our desires? Preaching obedience by grace is okay, but grace means Jesus lifts our burden for us, he does for us what we cannot do. I actually agree that obedience is necessary in the sense that sanctification is a free gift we must accept to allow it to work in us, but that obedience doesn't come by preaching obedience under any form of law (not just Mosaic law, but law meaning a demand or rule). Of course God commands men to repent, but this is not something people are going to do on their own, they have neither the desire nor the power to go around repenting of their sins all the time, and then they can fall into trying to stop sinning or trying to obey God in their resources instead of trusting in the Cross-work alone. We have to repent of "dead works," this is trying to replace the work of the Cross with our own man-made obedience, that is, instead of saying "Jesus work your grace in me freely," we try to achieve self-denial and godly attitudes out of our own resources. So what if I told you more obedience would result from more trust. You have your end result, obedience, but not through preaching that men must obey, but rather that men must trust Christ.

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JacobMartinMertens
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Re: God's grace and your obedience

Post by JacobMartinMertens » Thu Feb 04, 2016 8:48 pm

dizerner wrote:
JacobMartinMertens wrote:
dizerner wrote: So then perfect obedience isn't necessary. How much is necessary do you think?
Are you asking if God wants you to obey Him or are you asking if your obedience leads to salvation? No one is saved by works.
So obedience is not necessary for salvation, but we should do it anyway? In some sense I could agree with that. Here's the thing: trusting in Jesus is binary. It's a 0 or 1 value, I either am or I am not trusting in Jesus. But when you talk about obedience and works, it's not binary. I can obey to varying degrees, I can love God to varying degrees, and do the things I should to varying degrees, and we both agree no one does it perfectly. Here is my suggestion to you: you want to the right thing (spiritual fruit) but how is that going to happen for us when need a miracle to change our desires? Preaching obedience by grace is okay, but grace means Jesus lifts our burden for us, he does for us what we cannot do. I actually agree that obedience is necessary in the sense that sanctification is a free gift we must accept to allow it to work in us, but that obedience doesn't come by preaching obedience under any form of law (not just Mosaic law, but law meaning a demand or rule). Of course God commands men to repent, but this is not something people are going to do on their own, they have neither the desire nor the power to go around repenting of their sins all the time, and then they can fall into trying to stop sinning or trying to obey God in their resources instead of trusting in the Cross-work alone. We have to repent of "dead works," this is trying to replace the work of the Cross with our own man-made obedience, that is, instead of saying "Jesus work your grace in me freely," we try to achieve self-denial and godly attitudes out of our own resources. So what if I told you more obedience would result from more trust. You have your end result, obedience, but not through preaching that men must obey, but rather that men must trust Christ.
We should trust God and Christ and we should obey God and Christ. It's not obedience by grace. It is obedience because of grace. I don't believe they work together. I believe the person who has been saved by God's grace obeys God. We should all obey God. Then is the unbeliever not obeying God because he doesn't have God's grace? God's commands are for the unbeliever, certainly, as the unbeliever is a sinner. 1 Timothy 1:5, 8-11. If we live according to new covenant commands, be there any (there are 1050 commands in the New Testament) and if it is possible that this idea can exist rightly, then does that mean the unbeliever is not guilty by God's Law but by something else? Salvation is a free gift. Obedience is a choice. If a person obeys one of God's commands they have obeyed it! If a person fails in regard to any command he has failed in regard to all of God's commands, being guilty of having transgressed (God's commands or God's Law). Sanctification is necessary for each one of us. But salvation is not by works and therefore sanctification is not either.
John 1:41, 49 NASB - 41 He found first his own brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which translated means Christ). 49 - Nathanael answered Him, "Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel."

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jaydam
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Re: God's grace and your obedience

Post by jaydam » Thu Feb 04, 2016 10:33 pm

JacobMartinMertens wrote:
dizerner wrote:
JacobMartinMertens wrote: Therefore, I am not and have not been perfectly obedient as I have sin and He did not and does not have sin.
So then perfect obedience isn't necessary. How much is necessary do you think?
Are you asking if God wants you to obey Him or are you asking if your obedience leads to salvation? No one is saved by works.
Consider this:

The military has its own law (UCMJ). I can follow the UCMJ, but it does not make me part of the military. However, once I enlist in the military I am subjected to live out the UCMJ, or have my enlisted cut off.

Living by the code does not enlist me, but it determines my continued status of being enlisted.

Now, consider salvation to be enlistment into the kingdom. The lifestyle of the kingdom is the UCMJ, and IS related to staying in once saved/enlisted.

This has been the best analogy I can find related to how I view Christianity, taken from my army days.

I see Christianity sold as having no works, then later when the pastor tries to get the new convert to live "right" the new convert is confused because they were sold a salvation that required nothing from them, but now they are being told their life expects something from them.

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