I had a very interesting chat on WhatsApp with a preacher, some months ago. We were sharing about soul winning, and how that should be the focus of the church today, as it was in the early church. Very interesting chat, until I decided to get a clearer understanding of what the preacher man knows about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Questions and answers and more questions kept rolling in until he said:
Mr. XYZ: I’m not a grace preacher
Me: Oooh! So are you a disgrace preacher?
Mr. XZY: No, I preach the gospel only
Me:It should be called workpool or sadpool, Sir. 😊😊
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not an anti-grace gospel. If you don’t believe the salvation by grace[the unmerited favor ] of God, through faith in Jesus Christ alone, gospel , you are not yet saved. And you certainly aren’t preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, if it’s not centered on grace, though you are still a preacher .
Romans 1:15&16
15 So, for my part, I am willing and eagerly ready to preach the Gospel to you also who are in Rome.
16 For I am not ashamed of the Gospel (good news) of Christ, for it is God’s power working unto salvation [for deliverance from eternal death] to everyone who believes with a personal trust and a confident surrender and firm reliance, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is God’s powerful method of saving everyone who believes. That was what the early church were taught , that’s what we should preach also !
This gospel is the gospel of grace. And only through this means is salvation attained. If you are saved, you were saved by grace, not by your works!
Ephesians 2:8&9
8 For it is by free grace (God’s unmerited favor) that you are saved (delivered from judgment and made partakers of Christ’s salvation) through [your] faith. And this [salvation] is not of yourselves [of your own doing, it came not through your own striving], but it is the gift of God;
9 Not because of works [not the fulfillment of the Law’s demands], lest any man should boast. [It is not the result of what anyone can possibly do, so no one can pride himself in it or take glory to himself.]
You can’t be against the ‘salvation by grace ‘ message if you really are saved. There’s no other way to the Father. You can’t work out your salvation if you don’t have it. And you don’t have it if you worked for it. Because salvation by grace is God’s gift of love demonstrated in [and through the redemptive work of] Christ.
Our most memorized bible verse, even from childhood;
John 3:16
16 For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.
We didn’t earn it. We were even dead when his love found us. And you know dead people don’t do transactions .
Yes, we were dead in our sins!
Ephesians 2:1
And you [He made alive], when you were dead (slain) by [your] trespasses and sins.
Also,
Romans 5:8
But God shows and clearly proves His [own] love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) died for us.
Jesus is 100% God’s gift of love, so is our salvation.
The excuse has been, ” I don’t like the way some people preach the ‘grace message ‘, it makes people to start sinning ‘upandan’ . At the mention of the word FREEDOM (in Christ), sinners receives the license to sin. ” That’s why you employed your self to defend the gospel, right ?
Now your favorite bible verse is;
Jude 1:3
3 Beloved, my whole concern was to write to you in regard to our common salvation. [But] I found it necessary and was impelled to write you and urgently appeal to and exhort [you] to contend for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints [the faith which is that sum of Christian belief which was delivered verbally to the holy people of God].
You are not contending for the faith the Apostles handed down to the Saints.
Acts 4:33
33 And with great strength and ability and power the apostles delivered their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace (loving-kindness and favor and goodwill) rested richly upon them all.
They testified to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Galatians 2:21
[Therefore, I do not treat God’s gracious gift as something of minor importance and defeat its very purpose]; I do not set aside and invalidate and frustrate and nullify the grace (unmerited favor) of God. For if justification (righteousness, acquittal from guilt) comes through [observing the ritual of] the Law, then Christ (the Messiah) died groundlessly and to no purpose and in vain. [His death was then wholly superfluous.]
Fighting against the message of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, is not the way out of sin.
You may also need to see this :
Titus 2:11&12
“For the grace of God (His unmerited favor and blessing) has come forward (appeared) for the deliverance from sin and the eternal salvation for all mankind.
12 It has trained us to reject and renounce all ungodliness (irreligion) and worldly (passionate) desires, to live discreet (temperate, self-controlled), upright, devout (spiritually whole) lives in this present world,
The appearance of grace is primarily for the deliverance from sin and the eternal salvation for all mankind. Its is the grace of God that trains men to live a godly life.
The anti-grace message or the ‘trying -to-balance it’ campaign hasn’t saved anyone. It can’t save anyone !
We don’t have versions of salvation. it’s the same kind of salvation from sin and death the Apostles and the early church received. The same eternal salvation! We don’t need to upgrade or update it. It’s not going to change with time !
How do you even sing songs like,
“Thank you for saving me
Thank you my Lord
Thank you for saving me
Thank you my Lord”
And the next moment you are an anti-grace preacher?
The bad sense of empty religious activities and self righteousness can make one sing a song and still pay no attention to the words.
Another song that makes you pray in tongues and agallió(greatly rejoice) as you scream the words out of your mouth is, “In Christ Alone”. Yet you don’t believe in the “grace message “. I stand amazed in your presence!
Dear, preacher Sir, you should be open to the Truth. Learn to study, learn to keep learning.
We were saved by grace and not by our works.
By Bro Ikenna
