Life Transforming Grace

Thursday, June 27, 2013   Life Transforming Grace

“In him we live and move and have our being”

Acts 17:28

When the Apostle Paul was speaking to the philosophers in Athens, he described his relationship with Christ as, “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28) Paul is describing life in Christ. This way of life contrasts sharply with the superficial, cheap grace Paul had in mind when he asked a rhetorical question in his letter to the Christians in Rome: “Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? (Romans 6:1).

The grace of God is very good when it keeps you longing to go deeper, but it can be as dangerous as a diet of sugar if does not become life transforming. John Wesley modeled this when he described his “heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” Wesley’s initial touch of grace led him to the assurance of his right standing with God. But he did not stop there. He knew he had received an inner holiness of heart, the gift of new life in Christ. He also knew the Holy Spirit wanted to transform his life, to lead him into the reality of the life in Christ as Paul described it in Philippians 2:13: “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.”

The life in Christ is the way God has provided for our every need, temporal or spiritual, to be fulfilled in Christ. The riches of our life in Christ cannot be earned; they are the gift of our Father’s grace. In Christian bookstores there are as many “self-help” books encouraging us to change our life as there are in the secular bookstores. However, God does not call us to change our life. He wants to have new life, the life in Christ.  This new life in Christ is expressed in the terms of a total change in identity. The Christians in the Middle Ages understood this. When a person came for baptism, they were given a new name – usually from the Bible – and thus came the tradition of referring to your first name as your Christian Name. Their new name signified their new identity as the beloved child of God.

When God accepts us He then exchanges our old sinful nature with the new life in Christ. There is no easy way, no shortcuts to the life in Christ. Just as Christ’s journey to become our Savior took him to the cross, so also our journey to the life in Christ will take us down the road described by Paul: “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

Sē’lah

<><  <><  <><  <><

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  In addition to this BLOG they are distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com. The Kindle version will follow soon.

·        The second edition First Think – Then Pray has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.