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By Peter Collins Obeng, God’s Servant
THE CHOSEN instrument God uses in freeing and liberating humanity from error, ignorance, the power of Satan and sin is the Gospel of God’s grace. The Gospel of God’s grace is the power of God which transforms, builds up, empowers, establishes and confirms people.
Mike Bickle has said, “The most powerful, significant and liberating message given to the human race is the Gospel of God’s grace.”
The Church, therefore, needs to know and understand this Gospel which God conceived and hid in Himself. It was God’s wisdom or purpose which He ordained for our glory, and was carried out by Jesus Christ in His redemptive work. Then the Father revealed this Gospel to the Church through Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit – Gal. 1:11,12; Eph. 3:3-5.
The epistles thus contain the details of this Gospel, and reveal to us all that God has accomplished for us in Christ from eternity past to what He intends doing for us even at the revelation of the Lord.
It must be understood that the Law was about what man could do to earn the blessings of God. Grace, on the other hand, is about what God has done and the things He does for us which we access through faith. So, as we go through the epistles, we must find out the following which form the basis of the Gospel of God’s grace:
1) What the Father completed successfully for believers in Christ before the foundation of this world according to His foreknowledge – Eph. 1:3-6; 2Ti.1:9.
2) What God did for us in Christ’s redemptive work and in His exaltation at His right hand.
3) All that we have become in Christ in the New Birth experience and the fullness of the Father’s blessings available to us in Him.
4) The work and ministry the three Persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit perform in us, for us and through us.
5) The present day ministry of Christ to the Church at the Father’s right hand.
6) What the blood of the eternal covenant does for us in Christ.
7) What the Father intends doing for us in Christ in the ages to come, and the grace that will be brought to us at the revelation of Christ – Eph. 2:7; 1Pet. 1:13.
All these realities bring insights and awareness to us regarding the glorious Gospel of the New Covenant of grace. However, the Church needs to know and understand that any other Gospel removes us from God and the faith.
Paul, the apostle, indicates in the scripture below that from pure uncompromised motives, as commissioned and sent from God, he and his co-workers speak the Father’s message in the very sight of Him.
“For we are not like many, [acting like merchants] peddling God’s word [shortchanging and adulterating God’s message]; but from pure [uncompromised] motives, as [commissioned and sent] from God, we speak [His message] in Christ in the sight of God” – 2 Cor. 2:17 ( Amp).
The Apostle goes on to say that, “God has made us able ministers of the New Covenant.” – 2 Cor. 3:6. The message the Father entrusted to them to preach or testify to, as ministers of the New Covenant, was the Gospel of God’s grace.
Like Paul and his team, we all have been sent by God with just one message under the New Covenant of grace to share in Christ. The mixture of the Old Testament ceremonial law and the Gospel of God’s grace that we are tempted to preach to the Church is a different Gospel designed to remove believers from God and the faith – Gal. 1:6; Col. 1:23; 2:8.
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