Text- John 1:14 "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. "
I was surfing the internet some years ago, when on Facebook, I saw an advert of an online dating, chatting and flirting site. Sad enough, thousands of likes and comments have been dropped by Facebook users. As I mused, many thoughts and reflections flooded my heart:
The level of depravity and perversion in the world.
The multitude of souls that need help.
The enormity of the work before us as believers.
Lack of training to release laborers into the harvest.
...and lots more.
I decided to drop a comment to help the hearts of those that will be privileged to come across it. As I clicked on 'comment', I saw an earlier comment that goes like- "Chat, flirt and receive the inevitable wage, for the wage of licentious chatting is death"
I said to myself, This comment has successfully dispensed TRUTH, but where is the touch of GRACE in that message?
Am I saying the commentator was wrong? NO
Am I saying what he did was bad? NOT EXACTLY
BUT his message was not complete!
Truth, not balanced with grace is not complete, so also is grace without truth. We read in our text that Jesus came 'full of grace and truth’. Paul told the Colossians that they knew the GRACE of God IN TRUTH"- Colossians 1: 6. T
Truth says, "All sinners will rot in hell!" Grace says, "God is willing to forgive you if only you will repent"
I agree that knowing grace out of truth is not safe. It is in fact, very dangerous to preach grace without balancing it with truth; it gives birth to a lot of errors. One of those errors that have crept into the body of Christ is the 'Once saved, forever saved' philosophy.
When we however preach the truth to sinners without balancing it with a touch of grace, we portray to men, a God that is wicked, waiting to blow the final whistle so that he can punish sinners and subject them to eternal torment, not the God that said in Ezekiel 18:23- "Have I any pleasure in the death of the evildoer? Says the Lord: am I not pleased if he is turned from his way so that he may have life?"
TRUTH opens the eyes of a sinner to see his depraved state, but it is GRACE that opens the sinner's eyes to see the WAY out of that state so that he may have LIFE.
In other words, JESUS (as the truth) opens the eyes of a sinner to see his depraved state, but it is the same JESUS (by His grace) that opens the sinner's eyes to see JESUS (as the way) out of that state so that he may have JESUS (as the life)... Brethren, let us preach the complete JESUS!
Brethren, as much as we must not compromise the TRUTH of God's word, we must be evangels of His GRACE and as much as we live in the 'DISPENSATION OF GRACE', we must live by the uncompromised TRUTH of God's word.
PRAYERS
1. Lord, I choose to be a man of truth. Never will I compromise the truth of your word
2. Lord, I choose to be an evangel of your grace.
3. Let my speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that I may know how you should answer everyone.
Image Credit: tolbertmoore.com