Sometimes people talk about God’s grace as if it’s something they can manipulate.\u00a0 They think saying a prayer will force God to forgive them for whatever they do.\u00a0 But no words can convince God to forgive an unrepentant person.\u00a0 We don’t choose God and close a deal on a ticket to Heaven.\u00a0 God also has to choose us.\u00a0 If it weren’t for God’s grace we wouldn’t even be given the opportunity to seek his face.\u00a0 And only those who truly repent\u00a0 will be accepted by God.\u00a0 It’s not about just being sorry or feeling bad or having an emotional experience.\u00a0 It’s a practical change of mind that results in a practical change of behavior through the power and grace of God.\u00a0 We aren’t forgiven of our past to get us a free trip to Heaven.\u00a0 God grants forgiveness so that we can live new and holy lives that please God.\u00a0 We are saved so that we can do good works and be righteous people.\u00a0 It’s not some ethereal spiritual condition.\u00a0 It’s a real way of life.<\/p>\n
But some people think they can earn God’s grace, and that once they do they are better than everybody else.\u00a0 In fact, some people think once they pray a particular prayer that they can use God’s grace like it’s a limitless get-out-of-Hell-free card and go on living a life full of sin and get away with it.\u00a0 But the true Christian, who actually loves God, is not only changed by God’s grace, but in God’s grace they also choose to live a life of obedience to God.\u00a0 We don’t change into different people when we die.\u00a0 We simply change forms.\u00a0 And if your heart is still enslaved by sin on Judgment Day you will be cast out.\u00a0 But if your heart is pure, you will continue on the path you have already found in Christ.<\/p>\n
Whadaya think of that?<\/p>\n
Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a> (Duration: 33:04 — 15.1MB)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sometimes people talk about God’s grace as if it’s something they can manipulate.\u00a0 They think saying a prayer will force God to forgive them for whatever they do.\u00a0 But no words can convince God to forgive an unrepentant person.\u00a0 We don’t choose God and close a deal on a ticket to Heaven.\u00a0 God also has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[32,63,42,172],"class_list":["post-517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons","tag-arguments","tag-grace","tag-judgment","tag-repentance"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pastorfrog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pastorfrog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pastorfrog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pastorfrog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pastorfrog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=517"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pastorfrog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":521,"href":"https:\/\/www.pastorfrog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions\/521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pastorfrog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pastorfrog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pastorfrog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}