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The True Grace of God by Zac Poonen




False grace” is not a 21st-century phenomenon. It was being preached even in the days of the apostles.

Jude speaks of “some godless people who had slipped in unnoticed among the churches, and who had distorted the message of the grace of God in order to excuse their immoral ways” and who were teaching “that after we become Christians we can do just as we like without fear of God's punishment” (Jude 4 - Today’s English Version and Living Bible).

So Peter was prompted by the Holy Spirit to write a whole letter explaining what the true grace of God was (1 Peter). At the end of that letter, he says, “I have written to you briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it!” (1 Pet.5:12).

So, if we study Peter’s first letter, we can understand what true grace is.

Check yourself and see whether you have the true grace of God:

The Holy Spirit says that the true grace of God:
- Will make you live in obedience to God’s Word – and not according to the evil desires that governed you in your unconverted days (1 Pet.1:14).
- Will make you long to be holy as God is holy, and enable you to actually be holy in all your conduct and your way of living (1 Pet.1:15).
- Will make you value the blood of Christ more than all the silver and gold in the world, so that you never again treat sin lightly (sin, for which Christ shed His blood) (1 Pet.1:18,19).
- Will strengthen you to love others fervently with a pure heart (1 Pet.1:22)
- Will enable you to get rid of every trace of wickedness, deceit, insincerity, pretense, hypocrisy, grudges, envy, jealousy, slander and evil speaking (1 Pet.2:1 - Amplified). 
- Will make you long for God’s Word, just like newborn babies cry for milk (1 Pet.2:2).
- Will build you up along with others in God’s family as a spiritual house for God and thus deliver you from individualistic Christianity (1 Pet.2:5).
- Will enable you to submit to every human authority for the Lord’s sake (1 Pet.2:13).
- Will enable you to do what is right at all times, thus silencing the ignorant criticisms of others (1 Pet.2:15).
- Will make you treat all men with respect (1 Pet.2:17).
- Will enable you to follow in the footsteps of Christ Who did not sin (1 Pet.2:21,22).
- Will enable you to follow Christ’s example, Who never reviled or threatened anyone when He was insulted, but trusted Himself to the Father Who judges fairly (1 Pet.2:23).
- Will enable you wives to submit to your husbands, with a gentle and quiet spirit (1 Pet.3:1-4)
- Will enable you husbands to honour your wives as fellow-heirs, recognizing always that they are weaker vessels (1 Pet.3:7).
- Will enable you never to return evil for evil, or insult for insult, but on the contrary be a blessing to others (1 Pet.3:9).
- Will enable you to keep your tongue from evil and from telling lies (1 Pet.3:10).
- Will make you seek for peace with all people, always (1 Pet.3:11).
- Will make you willing to die to your self-life as Jesus did (“suffer in the flesh”) so that you might stop sinning totally (1 Pet.4:1)
- Will make you long to live the rest of your life for the will of God alone (1 Pet.4:2).
- Will make you cover the sins of others with Divine love (1 Pet.4:8)
- Will enable you to rejoice in suffering for Christ’s sake (1 Pet.4:13).
- Will keep you from being a busybody in other peoples’ affairs (1 Pet.4:15)
- Will make you judge yourself – and not others (1 Pet.4:17)
- Will enable you elders of churches to serve God’s people humbly and without taking a salary (1 Pet.5:1-3)
- Will enable you to humble yourself at all times. (1 Pet.5:5,6)
- Will free you from all earthly anxieties and worries (1 Pet.5:7)
- Will empower you to resist Satan boldly and firmly at all times (1 Pet.5:8,9).

The Holy Spirit says that this is what “the TRUE grace of God” will produce in believers; and He exhorts all of God’s children to “stand firm in it” always (1 Pet.5:12).

This is the true grace that Christ purchased for us as our inheritance, through His death and resurrection. Don’t miss out on this inheritance, by listening to the message of false grace that is being preached everywhere in Babylonian Christianity today.

Anything other than what has been described above is false grace – and must be rejected outright.

“Clothe yourselves with humility – for God gives His true grace to the humble” (1 Pet.5:5).

May the Lord open the eyes of your heart to see and to receive His true grace. Amen.

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