embrace grace...divorce yourself from law

Today the sermon Pastor Steve gave at church was amazing and challenging all at once. We've been going through the book of Hebrews and the series is called Jesus Is Better.  Today was called Jesus Is Better: the better Moses. 

Though I've been a Christian since I was 10 years old, sometimes I still struggle with truly accepting and understanding God's grace. I still feel unworthy of accepting it. I have such a guilty conscious, so when I sin, and I know I've sinned, sometimes I feel as though I need to be more religious and make up for what I've done, rather than just repenting and accepting God's grace. I never want to feel as though I am taking advantage of His grace. There needs to always be a good balance of being broken because of your sin, but still accepting His grace. That's exactly what the sermon was about today.

Moses was sent to prepare the hearts of the Israelites before Jesus came. Hebrews 3:3 says, "For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses- as much glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself." WE are the house!  So when Moses was sent to bring the Israelites the Law (10 commandments), they were already building an idol!! So why would God send Moses to set up a Law (a religious system) when He knew it would rise against the gospel? He knew they were going to build that idol before he even presented them with a set of rules to live by. He did this so we would be humbled and so He could prepare our hearts to love Christ!  The Israelites made an idol before the ink on the contract wasn't even dry! They had absolutely NO hope of obeying. God knew their misbehavior was in their unhealthy hearts. The Mosaic Law showed them they are completely broken...just what we needed to be fully dependent on Christ.

The part that is easy to do with the Law is when we feel like we are doing awesome by keeping the Law, we judge others and want to close off the world to grace, which ultimately leads to self-righteousness.  We begin to act like we no longer NEED Christ and His GRACE!  This is what I was talking about when I stated above about being more religious rather than accepting God's grace. When we sin, we need to run to GRACE, NOT shame. We try to do more good deeds (whether we realize it or not) so we can earn our way back into a good relationship with God. If we had to work hard and do good deeds to rid ourselves of sin, we would never be accepted by Christ...life would be stressful and we would never feel able to fulfill our duty.  We sin way too much even for a lifetime to work our way into heaven. We need to ACCEPT God's grace and know the Law came to break us of self-sufficiency and pride! It's so much more freeing.

When our hearts are broken by grace and not self-effort, this is when God is able to work through us and allow us to grow closer to Him. We rely on Him and not ourselves. We compare ourselves to His standards and not to the world's.

Hebrews 8:10-12 says, "For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people, And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more."

HE'S DONE IT FOR US!!! WE NO LONGER HAVE TO BE IN CHAINS...WE CAN LIVE IN FREEDOM BECAUSE OF CHRIST'S LOVE, OBEDIENCE, AND WILLINGNESS TO GO TO THE CROSS AND BEAR ALL OF OUR SINS FOR US!! HE DIDN'T HAVE TO DO THIS, BUT HE KNEW THERE WAS NO OTHER WAY FOR US TO BE ABLE TO SPEND ETERNITY WITH HIM WITHOUT THIS HAPPENING. A PERFECT BEING HUNG ON THE CROSS FOR IMPERFECT PEOPLE. AMAZING LOVE, HOW CAN THIS BE? This is how much our Heavenly Father loves us. Embrace grace; divorce yourself from the Law.