David Marshall's FindingGrace.ca Blog

I was reading in Bob George’s book “Classic Christianity” early this morning and felt so grateful because like a canning jar prior to use, my life has been totally cleansed. I have been totally forgiven and Christ’s spirit lives within me. Paul wrote “It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me.” One doesn’t sterilize a canning jar for display but to put something in it. In my case, it’s Christ who came to live in and through me.

The religions that believe in sacrificing animals each year for the forgiveness of sins present their followers with good news and bad news, according to Bob George. “You watch with relief and thanksgiving, the innocent animal symbolically taking your guilt away. What relief! That’s the good news. What’s the bad news? Tomorrow your sins begin adding up again. Next year there will need to be another sacrifice. And the next year. And the next.” He was talking about the Jews in the Old Testament but there are those who make sacrifices today to be forgiven. Hebrews 10: 4 says that it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin.

Bob George impressed on me the importance to not only believe and teach the entire gospel. “Not the cross and forgiveness of sins alone, but the cross plus God’s gift of the resurrected life of Christ.” A few people whom I know have been encouraging rule following and Bob George has an excellent response to that as well – “If salvation was only forgiveness of sins without a change of heart, yes we would probably take it as a license to sin.”

Once we accept Jesus Christ’s death, resurrection and new life, we can enter into our own new life. God takes each believer, upon conversion, from the present and places him into Christ Jesus on the cross. We experience not only his death and resurrection but also his new life through us. Paul wrote that it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me. Dallas Bergen of Grace Life Canada recently said at a conference that it would be better if WWJD meant “What will Jesus do?” rather than “What would Jesus do?”.

The lyrics of a song which I learned from my first pastor, Pastor Gary Inrig,  Grace Upon Grace, often comes to my mind. Consider the words of this song:

“Grace upon grace like the waves on the shore, always enough, always more.
Grace upon grace like the waves on the shore, all that we need is ours from the Lord.”

God bless you as you discover his grace and his life through and in you. 

Tags: Bob George, death, Grace, new life, resurrection
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Here is a part of a message which I received from Dr. Steve McVey after writing my blog about “Works”. He had just spoken several times at Centre Street Church in Calgary.

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The foundational text was 2 Cor 5:17, with the main idea being that all things are new in Christ.

Point 1: I’m a new man (we are saints not sinners)

Bible text: 1 Cor 6:17 Illustration: sweet tea.

Point 2. I have a new motivation (love not laws)

Bible text: 2 Cor 5:14 Illustration: how I met my wife.

Point 3; I have a new methodology: (dependence not duty)

Bible text: John 15:4 Illustration: how an orange grows.

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Finally, what I promised almost a month ago, my blog entry about “Works”! 

To begin with, here is an excerpt from Man in the Mirror by Dr. Patrick Morley. I will comment on this excerpt afterward and add some things that I have learned recently.

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You are very special to God. God loves you very much. Nothing you do will ever make you good enough for God to love you. Nothing you have done will ever make you bad enough for God not to forgive you. Your salvation does not depend on doing good works, yet genuine salvation results in good works. Good works don’t earn merit. Good works don’t lead to the cross, but are the evidence that you have the cross.

Make Sure Your Salvation

Let’s not take salvation for granted. Let’s not tell men who sit on their thumbs, “That’s okay. Don’t worry about it. God loves you anyway.” Instead, let’s exhort men to faith and the good deeds that demonstrate faith. That was Paul’s message, “I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven…. I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds” (Acts 26:19-20).

via ALM 182 – Faith Without Works: Are You Really a Christian?. (Man in the Mirror – Dr. Patrick Morley)

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I do not agree that there is nothing that we need to do to be accepted by God. There is one very important thing that we need to do. Although there is nothing that you can do after accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, that is a very necessary thing to do. If you wish to know how to receive salvation, please write to me and I will share a prayer with you and what it means to be Born Again.

Dr. Steve McVey of Grace Walk (http://gracewalk.com) says that our good works are like those that should be a part of any relationship. He speaks about how wonderfully he treated his wife when he was dating her but then thought that they were not necessary after he had been married for several months. He was praying that God would improve his marriage by changing his wife. One day God told him that he needed to change Steve. Steve went back to treating his wife wonderfully and say God make changes in his wife. Their marriage became much better. Our good works come from a place of love for our savior Jesus Christ, for his father and for the Holy Spirit, our comforter.

Are you living in a way that shows your love for God and will improve your relationship with him? Are you doing these things out of your love for him or out of obligation? Do you accept the fact that God loves you and wants the best for you?

God bless you! Be a blessing to others. 

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Solomon, the author of Ecclesiastes and The Song of Solomon, has been said to be one of the wisest men who ever lived and yet he said that all is meaningless under the sun several times in Ecclesiastes. Is this actually the case? Is it true in your life?

What puts meaning in your life? Your job? Your wealth? Your children? Your spouse? Your dreams?

If it is one of those things then you are probably frustrated frequently or even depressed as these are idols or counterfeit gods. Solomon found no fulfillment in pleasure, wealth, wisdom, knowledge, or the work within which he pursued it. If you paint the true God out of the picture than the end is the same no matter what else you attempt to find meaning or fulfillment in. Solomon lamented that whatever one accomplishes, one leaves for the next generations who may not even remember your name. Life is meaningless without God. If there is no God then Solomon is correct, we might as well eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.

If there is no God then everything is by chance. The Earth was created by chance, the solar system, the universe and even you and I. If there is no God then there is nothing after this life. There is no Heaven. There is no Hell. If there is no God then it makes no difference how we live this life. If there is no God then we should feel free to demand our satisfaction and gratification from others in our lives. In 1 Corinthians 15:17-20 Paul says that life is meaningless and futile without God.

Solomon tells us not to turn our backs on God when life does not make sense. Think about this. God is the creator of this world and knows it better than anyone. He knows what plans he has for our lives. He knows what we need and what our desires are. Above that, he can meet every need we have. It does not make sense to turn our backs on the “author and finisher of our salvation” Hebrews 12:2. God has made everything beautiful in His time Ecclesiastes 3:11.

Why does a righteous man die in his righteousness but an evil man lives long in his wickedness? Solomon asks this question and we continue to ask this question today. Is this unfair? If we consider it to be unfair then that leads us to believe that God is unfair but because He loves us so much, we know that He is fair. John 3:16 tells us that God so loves the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him, will not perish but have ever-lasting life. If one is a Christian then one may long to be united with our savior Jesus Christ in Heaven but God has much work for us to do here and the laborers are few.

Solomon tells us to worship God with all of our hearts but many of us worship the things that God has created or given to us. Anything that is more important than God is an idol. Jesus says, where your money is, there your heart will be also. Whatever you put your time or money in becomes an idol. In Genesis, we are told about Isaac being born to Abraham and Sarah when they are both very old and yet God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son. He asked this of Abraham because Isaac had become more important to him than his relationship with God. Because God required this of Abraham it benefited the lives of both father and son after God provided an alternate sacrifice Genesis 22.

Pastor Henry Schorr of Centre Street Church in Calgary said in a sermon that most of what is wrong with us can be traced back to an idol in our lives. These idols can cause relational tensions and other scars in our lives. Many of these things are not bad in themselves but they should not be our focus in our lives. Take a walk up the mountain and sacrifice your idol to God. Surrender your counterfeit god and worship the True God. Worship him only and see him make your life the best it can be.

Tags: God, Jesus, meaning in life, Solomon
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The Manly Man – A Quick Start Guide to Discipleship – Mark Gungor

Money and sex need to be surrendered to Christ in order for a person to be a disciple of Christ. Believe it or not, Mark Gungor says that there are men who would rather masturbate than have sex with their wives. He says that it is because these men have gotten so used to satisfying themselves that they do not have a normal appreciation for their wives or for the sex that God planned for each person to appreciate.

Mark also reminded us that we can only serve one god either Yahweh or mammon (money). So many people have the wrong idea of money. They do not realize or fully accept that we own nothing as our Heavenly Father owns it all. We need to trust God when we give rather than giving the people who we support the third degree.

Some of the men of Centre Street Church watched a video of Mark talking about this topic.

Marriage Seminars | Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage!.

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Hello Everybody:

It is here that I will make regular postings to my web site. I hope that it will be of interest to you.

David

P.S. This makes me think about programming a computer to print “Hello World” over and over again.

In BASIC, it would be:

10 Print “Hello World”
20 Go to 10

David

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