“Christ did not suffer and die to offer cheap grace. Jesus did not go willingly to the cross so we could have an easy life or offer a faith built on easy-believism. As someone once said, ‘Salvation is free, but not cheap.’ It cost Jesus His life.” Rev. Billy Graham .
We live in a time where many churches are aligning grace with tolerance. When we begin to forsake hard truth in an effort to demonstrate grace, we have cheapened the cross. The cross is not a symbol that we hide under to allow us to remain in the same lifestyle, habit or hurt we’ve been existing. The cross represents the blood that was purposefully shed so we don’t have to live in bondage, slaves to our humanness.
We can’t just skim through scriptures that say the hard things, we need to allow them to hit us where it hurts so we turn, repent, and move in the direction of Holiness. We aren’t doing folks favors when we don’t preach truth. We aren’t helping people when we dance around the hard issues in an effort not to offend. We can’t out-kind, out-love, or out-grace God, how mis-guided we’ve become to think we can compromise truth to build bridges.
We are called to live life in the pursuit of holinesss. Yes, we are human, and this broken, damaged and painful world often steers us in directions that go against righteous living. We can easily find ourselves caught-up in choices and lifestyles that run counter to the Word of God; that is the heavy result of sin. But we can’t stay in those places. Once you have embraced the truth of Jesus Christ it is no longer about you changing you, or fixing you, it is about allowing the Holy Spirt the freedom to do that transformation in your life. That is the true meaning of surrender.
Jesus Christ went to the cross with determination and purpose. His message is for everyone wherever they are at, whatever lifestyle they are living. You come with a heart of total surrender and repentance and He forgives, loves, and will move in your life in power to change you from the inside out. Grace begins with surrender. Surrender leads to obedience. Obedience leads to sanctification and transformation, which pushes us towards holiness.
Get serious about your life, and the lives of those around you. Time is running out.
Galations 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”