I love Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. To me it is one of the most freeing scriptures there is.  My life is Him living through me.

But lately, I have found myself jumping to the next scripture. Galatians 2:21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.Lately I have been seeing a lot of “frustration” over the issue of grace.

I have thought long and hard about manipulation, frustration and the enormous thought process about grace.

I grew up in a pretty strict family. We were allowed to be boys, but there was a rigid thought process in what we could do or not do. My dad was a veteran who had suffered what was called then, battle fatigue. Hospitalized multiple times from explosives that went off next to him and such, he most likely suffered what we might call PTSD or TBI. He was hard on us.

I revolted against a lot of it.   But at the end of the day you pretty much know where you stood. There was no hidden agenda. By the time I became a believer, I entered a church fellowship where there were the following characteristics or thought processes.

• Sickness was the result of sin.
• Prophecy scared us because it would uncover your hidden sin or failings.
• An inner circle was privileged.
• Poverty was the result of not tithing.
• Oh there was more.

My next church gathering was quite the opposite. A lot about grace and so much I did not understand.  And by the time I made it to third church fellowship my life was starting to think on His grace.

I endured the thoughts of accountability and manipulation. When you grow up with constraints you believe you still need constraints. But I soon realized that if people were going to lie to you, accountability was probably a moot point!

Grace, grace, grace!

I began to examine grace, first as a word, then a topic, soon a principle, but one day I realized grace was a man and His name was Jesus.

Rom 14:12 So then each of us shall give account of himself to God

But here is what God is saying to us, Col 1:21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight.

I went through a period in our fellowship many years ago, that my wife and I headed, where we it seemed overnight we were seeing people from a variety of cults and places of cultish practices. They did not need “more rules” but they needed love and grace and kindness.

We were “forced” to see what God was saying, what He was doing.

During that time, I watched a dear friend go through “moral failure” and because of what he believed he left the church. Never coming back. He did not wait to be put in the “penalty box” but just disappeared. It was a number of years ago that my friend Mark and I hammered out a lot of our relationship and beginning understanding of grace  in the fall of a young church leader I knew.

During their periods of failure they were called to “improve their behavior” and change this and change that. When Paul discusses falling from grace he is writing in Galatians about forgetting you were saved by grace and not your works or your actions. Folks were denied partaking in bread and wine, the very action that reminds them of who they are, who God is and why we can be all that He wants us to be. Their actions judged by man to be worthy or not worthy.

A lot of this has become manipulative and even demonic in its nature.

Galatians 2:19 What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. 20 Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I am not going to go back on that. Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily…MSG

The radical grace of God must be taught. When we displace it we move away from God.  We make a very, very, serious error.  We remove the good news from the Gospel.

I have to say it is important for me, my wife and our family to be where we are. It took a lot of time to understand what we have gleaned in grace. I am so thankful for the message of freedom.

Galatians 5:1 Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you. 2 I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ’s hard-won gift of freedom is squandered (MSG)

I struggle as I encounter friends who have begun to see the New Covenant, of Righteousness, Grace and the New Creation not attending church gatherings because they feel alienated. They do not want to be manipulated or held captive by erroneous teaching or actions.

No one wants to be manipulated. God made us free.

I have “worked” hard to let others grow. And the more I recognize that there are two factors necessary for growth, I can relax. One is the power of God in one’s life. The second is for the person to allow the power of God or grace to help them grow, become responsible, stewards over the gifts God has sown in their lives.

2014 is a year of restoration, of open doors and more; we have heard it said many times. One of the greatest actions of man in the coming year will be to let God expose error without fear of repercussions. When I told my children what I no longer believed about various things, it was a hard tearful journey. But the results have been amazing.

Allow the spirit of God to reveal His heart towards you, towards others.