Living Grace

Fullness – by responding yes to grace we have received Christ fullness. This is confirmed in the gospel of John 1:16: “For of his fullness have we all received, and grace upon grace.”

What is that fullness? It is what Jesus is in Himself. That is what made Him what He is.

When you received Eternal Life in Christ you received the very thing that makes Jesus what He is. You received of the Father His very Nature; so if you have received into your spirit that which makes God what He is, you are like Him.

This fullness is His power, His love, His kindness, His tenderness, His peace, His faith, and His joy. There is now in you fullness at all times. There is fullness of blessings of every sort and shape. The fullness of abundance for you to receive and explore. A fullness of who Christ is that lives in you. You can say, “I am what He says I am.” He has said that you are His child, and you are what He says you are. (1 John 3:2.)

Joy – The life of Christ now alive in you, has been given to you and now your heart is filled with joy that is unspeakable and full of glory. The Holy Spirit has placed the joy of heaven in you. His fruit in you means that you have an abundance of joy and your fruitfulness with burst inside you with Joy. Now by grace the incredible Joy of heaven has been given to you.

Jesus’ joy is made full in us; our joy is made full in Him. This is one of the sweetest, most beautiful things Jesus ever prayed for us. The believer should never allow anything to rob him of his joy. The conquering power of the Church is not just knowledge of the miraculous, but joy. A joyful people of Christ is an attractive people of Christ. A joyful believer is attractive.

Peter says in 1 Peter 1:8, “You love him passionately although you have not seen him, but through believing in him you are saturated with an ecstatic joy, indescribably sublime and immersed in glory.”

In Philippians 4:1, Paul says to them, “My dear and precious friends, whom I deeply love, you have truly become my glorious joy and crown of reward. Now arise in the fullness of your union with our Lord.”

In 2 Corinthians 2:14, “Thanks be unto God, who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ.”

It is that triumphant, joyful spirit that is now inside our hearts. It is not something we seek and look for; it is not something we wait or expect. It has been given to us, Joy resides in us, and we can draw on it every moment of life.

New Birth – By responding yes to Grace I have been born a completely New Man. I have come out of the womb of God. I am born of God. I am a New Creation created in Christ Jesus. As soon as I am Born Again, Recreated, and became a New Creation, I became indwelt by the great mighty Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead.

This means I have been born out of Adam’s family into God’s family. I am as much a child of the Father as was Jesus during His earth walk. I have the nature of the Father, I have the love that dominated the life of Christ, and I have the wisdom of God in Christ. He is now the strength of my life. He has given to me His own ability. I have a legal right to the use of the Name of Jesus, and all authority in Heaven and on earth is in that Name.

God put us into Christ, on His own initiative

It was always God’s intention to shower his glorious love on us.  He is the beginning and the end. He is the start of all things and the end of all things. God took the initiative and all we did was respond to his invitation.  It was his desire and passion that caused him to reach out and embrace us. We are the child he always dreamed of; we are the delight of his heart. We are God’s treasure.

We are In Christ and Christ is in us. We are never separated from Christ; he lives in us. We are in a love relationship with him, we are his desire and He is our desire. We are his delight and He is our delight. He will never leave us or forsake us. We are eternally married to Christ.

In Christ we enter the radiance of God. The overflowing, overwhelming, Glory of God now lives within each Christian. We become the express radiance of God. This is our new birth in Christ. Adam’s sin had given us a heart of dullness. And dullness had become our identity. But Christ took our dullness, killed it and put His radiance in our hearts. Paul describes it as being transferred from the Kingdom of Darkness to the Kingdom of light. In Christ, the light has been switched on. We are not new creation of dullness; we are new creations of radiance.

God loves us with the glorious love of his overflowing heart of goodness. This love is a pure love, unparalleled and a love beyond our wildest imaginations. A love that created the universes, that set every star in its place. A love that is declared in the universe, for every star in the night sky declares that God loves you with an everlasting, total love. A love that is totally and utterly committed to you.

The favour of Heaven is ours in Christ. Jesus came to declare that today is the day of the Lord’s Favour. God never took his favour away from us, He was always there. Waiting for us, with arms wide open, to receive us and seat us in our seat of favour, next to God in heavenly places, with every spiritual blessing poured out into our lives.