CONCERT OF PRAYER

Pray Week 936

“Grace to Grow”

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ… (2 Peter 3:18)

Professionals in many disciplines are expected to continue to grow in their knowledge and skill. Educators and health care as well as other professional workers must complete Continuing Education Units (CEU) to attest to their growth in knowledge and ability. In a similar fashion God also expects us to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus.

We are saved and justified through faith in Jesus Christ by God’s Grace. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law…the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe…and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…to be received by faith. (Romans 3:21-25)

Is that now the end of our Christian experience in this life? Is salvation merely an admission pass into heaven? Once saved by grace are we now free to ‘live like the devil’ in this world? What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? …Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God…and your members to God as instruments for righteousness… (Romans 6:1, 6:12-14)

God wants us to be perfect and holy. You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect...since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (Matthew 5:48 & 1 Peter 1:16) This is an impossible expectation for us apart from God’s Grace. Necessary Grace for living a pure and holy life is always found in the Person of Jesus Christ. It is never found in a religious procedure, process or ritualistic experience.

God expects us to grow in His Grace through growing in our relationship with Jesus. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age… (Titus 2:11-12)

God expects us to remain in the process of sanctification in this life. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God…For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. (1 Thessalonians 4:3-7)

Allow the Holy Spirit to speak to your heart about the state of your relationship with Jesus. Are you growing in His grace and knowledge every day? Do you follow Him so closely that you can hear his heartbeat or are you on a distant, divergent path of your own choosing where you allow yourself to be subjected to the temptation of the sin of this world?

May you grow in the grace and intimate knowledge of Jesus as you truly seek first His kingdom and righteousness. May you grow in sanctification every day as you continually make choices to follow Jesus over the passions and immorality of this world that can lead you away from purity.