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Summarising all that the Bible speaks about grace, is the truth that it takes you from where you are to where God wants you to be. So where ever you are in your life right now, grace will bring a positive change within you to take you higher, to move forward in your walk with God, to a place of power in your inner being.
The source –
The source of it all is the Holy Spirit. As Lord Jesus declared on the last day of the feast, ‘whoever believes in me, as the scriptures has said, out of his inner most being, his heart, shall flow rivers of living water’. Now this He said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive. [John 7:37-39]
God’s way is always to bring about a change in you from within you. It is never just a behavioral change. The heart of the matter is always the heart. And there is a connection between the Holy Spirit and the heart.
How the heart is transformed by the power of the Spirit-
You were saved not by your works of righteousness but by His mercy, by the washing of your regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour. [Titus 3:5]
You are saved by what God has done for you, for each one of us, and not according to what you do. You are saved by His mercy, by trusting and believing in what He has done for you. The wages of sin is death, but He gives you the gift of eternal life
What is regeneration-
Death is a separation of the separation of the spirit from the body. It is not total extinction. The sin of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden caused death as their spirits were separated from God. And now the death that came through Adam reigns in you until you are saved. What can a dead man do to raise himself up? Nothing.
But God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ- by grace you have been saved. [Ephesians 2:5] The grace of God is His undeserved favour and power that He bestows in you and upon you. The Holy Spirit begins to make you realise that you are a sinner who needs a saviour. He not only shows the problem but also the solution – who is Jesus Christ. And as you come to Him in repentance, acknowledging you are a sinner, His Blood cleanses you of all unrighteousness and the blessed Holy Spirit comes to dwell in you, working miracles within you. It is the power of the Spirit.
Power – to be a witness:
You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the end of the earth. [Acts 1:8] Jesus spoke this promise unto His disciples even as He ascended to the Father’s right hand.
And even today, His power brings a change within you, in your inner most being, for you are a human being. Your being takes precedence over your doing. In your heart, your innermost being, there comes a change that empowers you to be a witness, a living testimony. The Holy Spirit is a person. He comes in you not just for an outward manifestation, but to give you ability, efficiency and strength to do the will of God within you.
The Spirit of liberty –
Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. [2 Corinthians 3:17] There is freedom when the Spirit of the Lord is in you. You are free to dominate and overcome the sin that threatens to overcome you.
For if you are honest with yourself you will acknowledge that even after you are saved negative emotions can come within you now and then. But now, when jealousy or fear comes, you no longer have to sit back and let it run amok in you. The power to conquer and overcome the negative emotion is in you now.
The process- beholding to become:
When you are saved the veil covering your heart is stripped away. As you behold the image of God with unveiled face, you are being transformed to be conformed to the image of Christ by the Lord who is the Spirit. [2 Corinthians 3:18]
The physical mirror shows your exact physical replica when you stand before it. But when you behold the image of God through His Word as in a mirror you are being transformed, for it is His mage you see, not yours. It is His glorious attributes you see with great clarity. You do not have to see Him physically in order to describe Him. You behold Him as in a mirror when you meditate on the word of God.
The difference –
Unlike your reflection in the glass mirror which is exactly the same as yourself, you will find that as you behold God’s image as in a mirror, there is a difference. He is holy. And, ‘ Be holy as I am holy’ He declares. But you can see that between His holiness and yours there lies a vast difference. Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect, Lord Jesus declares, but as you behold the perfection of God through His word, you can see that you are nowhere as perfect as Him. But do you have to give up? No, for the Holy Spirit is in you. It is the good news.
Transformed by the Spirit-
As you keep on beholding the image of God, you are being transformed by the Holy Spirit in you, from one degree of glory to another and slowly and steadily you are conformed to the image of Lord Jesus by the Lord who is the Spirit. [2 Corinthians 3:19] It is the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in you.
Displayed in Moses-
We see it happening in the life of Moses whom the Bible describes to be the meekest man on earth. And it is Lord Jesus who describes Himself to be meek and gentle in spirit. Was it vain boasting on Moses’s part? It was not, for it was the Holy Spirit who spoke it, though the words were written by Moses himself.
In the face of opposition-
When Miriam and Aaron opposed Moses in the wilderness, [Numbers Chapter 12] he stood silent in front of their wrong accusations. But the Almighty God spoke to vindicate him. Lord Jesus, the Almighty Saviour stood silent in front of Pilate and all others who mocked and reviled Him. He proved He was the Son of God, the Messiah, by staying on the Cross. And God the Father vindicated Him by raising Him up on the third day.
Even in your life His power will be demonstrated in you. He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that you ask or imagine according to His power that is at work in you. [Ephesians 3:20] Amen.
