Offensive Grace

In the gospels Jesus met people "in their sin"
They had a revelation of who He was- then He called them out of it...
broken ones met Jesus and were made whole.
The gospels are where I meet Jesus.

The church sometimes teaches one must repent of their sins to come to Jesus. stop sinning...immediately! But in reality that makes it self effort and not His Grace - "try" to come to him clean.

In reality He cleanses us in our state of wretch from our state of wretch.

While we were yet dead in our sins and trespasses christ made us alive.

Being made right by His righteousness will lead us to right living...but we first need to be made alive to live right.

for it is by grace we are saved, not of works lest anyone should boast, it is a gift of God.

Christ brought us to life while we were "yet" dead in our sin....it is a sovereign work of God. He did for us what we
could not do for ourselves... He made us right with God and is now conforming us look like Him.

Christ is being formed in us.......present tense and future tense.

That is some good Grace.

One of the truest definitions of Repentance is to have your mind changed.
Our minds are changed as they are renewed by the word....the word is Christ.
We will see sin for what it really is...that it is not compatible with who we are in Christ...the more we know who we are in Him, the less we will want to be in sin.

The new nature has to take its place.

We have to be thoroughly convinced as to the definition our new nature ...in light of His nature...We need to meet Jesus daily and see Him in all of his love, beauty and grace.

The loving kindness of God is what leads men to repentance.

People already know how evil they are when the see how good God is.
He gave us a conscience...He also gave us a bunch of laws to show us how far we are from HIM.
People need to see the the answer, Jesus. They need to see what he did for them on the cross.

"If I be lifted up(he spoke in reference to the cross) I will draw all men unto myself"

We lift up Jesus by sharing the work of his cross and all that it accomplished....then he draws men to himself.

Paul didn't quote much Jesus in his teachings. Paul testified of what Jesus did on the behalf of men. That is how men believed the Gospel of Jesus Christ and were saved.

I am starting to think "The gospel of Jesus Christ" is different from "the Gospel Jesus preached."

Jesus preached the Law(even taking the law to a higher standard) to bring men to the end of themselves and to testify of what He was going to do on the cross...which was to fulfill the law and bring it to an end...so that his grace could fully come to us.

Paul preached what Jesus did and that is what brought men to Jesus, and to trust in His saving work.