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Verse by Verse Devotional on Philippians by Pastor Jack #278

September 30, 2015 | by: Jack Lash | 0 comments

Posted in: Philippians

What About Grace? #2 of 3: The Two Dangers

4:19 "And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus."

We have seen that this verse is a promise to supply the needs of the Philippians because they have been generous to Paul, and that it implies what other passages teach directly: that God blesses those who are generous.

But this raises the question of grace. How does the principle of God’s blessing being conditioned upon our generosity square with the principle of His grace, whereby we are blessed not for what we have done but simply because He is merciful?

Before we ponder this question we must recognize that there are a NUMBER of things in Scripture that are hard for us to put together. And our wrong-headed tendency, if we cannot figure out how two things fit together, is to latch on to the one we think is most important or least dangerous and exclude the other. Each one seems to threaten the other, and so we ignore the one that seems most threatening to us.

Christians today are especially prone to do this regarding the issue before us. Those who are more afraid of the legalism/Pharisaism/use-Christianity-to-elevate-yourself-above-others error tend to ignore or minimize the Bible’s teachings about duty, responsibility, the fear of the Lord, and, in particular, the verses that talk of God blessing the righteous. Those who are more afraid of the permissiveness/cheap-grace/do-what-you-want-and-God-will-forgive-you error tend to ignore or minimize the Bible’s teachings on freedom, grace, forgiveness, and God’s unconditional love for His children.

Both of these are dangerous. It is very important for us to realize that there are always TWO cliffs one can fall off, not just one. Having fear of one error tends to propel us into the opposite error. We need to have fear of both errors:

"So you shall observe to do just as the LORD your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right or to the left." (Deut. 5:32, Cf. Deut. 28:14; Proverbs 4:25–27.)

Whatever solution we come up with to our question, it must fully acknowledge both principles, not just drown out one voice by turning up the volume of the other.

Those who embrace the principle of unconditional grace and ignore the principle of conditional blessing, both of which are clearly laid out in Scripture, endanger the very grace they seek to protect by catapulting many of the utterances of the God of grace. And those who embrace conditional blessing and ignore unconditional grace likewise undermine the very system they seek to uphold. We cannot protect God’s truth by denying it. The safest way to protect God’s word is to let Him say whatever He wants to say, and trust Him to always speak the truth.

"If anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book." (Rev.22:19)

Please protect me, dear Father, from the error of accepting some parts of Your word and unconsciously rejecting others. Help me to accept it all as it is. Help me to let You be God and to never think that I can improve You by leaving out the parts that I am uncomfortable with. May Your truth, Your whole truth, and nothing but Your truth hold full sway in my life.

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