Fight for Grace

Jesus Is Enough?

 Two-thousand years ago something extraordinary happened; God reached down into sin-ridden humanity to pave a path back to relationship with Him. Love was His fuel and Jesus His instrument.
 This Nazarene carpenter suffered unspeakable pain and anguish as He was ruthlessly flogged and crucified. As if the physical pain wasn’t bad enough, the Father made Jesus, His perfect Son, to be sin. Exactly what this entailed will most likely forever remain a mystery, but we can know that whatever it was, something brutal beyond words happened to the one Person who didn’t have it coming to Him. Jesus absorbed the wrath of God for sins that He never committed, and faced a death that He never deserved, so that we could once again know the God who created us.
 For centuries a war has existed over one simple word, a word that is at once subtle and powerful, life changing and challenging, liberating and joyous. This word is grace. Maybe you have heard of it. The Greek word for grace is charis and it means, “unmerited favor.” It is this word that the apostle Paul used when he stated, “For by grace you have been saved through faith…”  (Ephesians 2:8). It is by God’s completely free, undeserved and unmerited favor that we are saved. This grace of God was poured from Heaven onto Earth when Jesus came and suffered for our sins. It is this grace that holds Christianity together like fine glue separating it from all man-made religions. Without grace, there is no Christianity.
 This war over grace is the very same war that the apostles, like Paul, spent so much time fighting during their ministry. These churches often struggled with applying the practices of Old Testament Law to the New Covenant. While several practices of the Law, like, circumcision, are not real struggles for modern day believers, we still struggle with whether Jesus is enough for us. This is why war still exists. A war found in the trenches of our pews, and from the heights of our pulpits. This war that has its origin, not in some outside force, but in the deepest and most tender recesses of the human heart where a simple question is beckoned: Is Jesus enough? 
 The reality is that God has done something amazing for us. He has taken it upon Himself to do the work that we ourselves could not do. He has carried our sin, done away with it entirely, and given us a chance to be freely in relationship with Him through simply faith in His Son. 
 God’s final expectation for humanity is that His Son be received; that Jesus be enough for us. But looking inside many church buildings today we see a Jesus who isn’t enough and a salvation requiring more than His work. Instead of Jesus alone, we see a salvation that is in dire need of confession, communion, baptism, good works, and other religious trappings. While we may not willingly admit it, many of us have traded Jesus for these and other religious duties. We have forgotten grace and are failing to fight for it like the Apostles did. We humans have a hard time accepting that which we feel is undeserved. We feel that we must earn grace or make ourselves worthy of it. Jesus’ work has been minimized because of this mentality, and the consequences are staggering. Religious bondage is in good supply.
 Because Jesus is not seen as enough, our entire view of God has been radically skewed. If God is not the God of grace, then Jesus is not the awesome Savior that the scriptures show Him to be; the Holy Spirit is not the wonderful Helper who lovingly guides us daily; nor is the Father our Daddy whom we can freely run to any time of the day, and who is completely accepting of us because of the all sufficient work of Jesus. We Christians are therefore left with a faith that produces not a living freedom in our relationships with God, but a pseudo divine grace that binds with rules and regulations that no honest person will ever meet.
The world has enough religions where grace is absent and a tireless chasing after God exists in its place. Jesus knew this and came to create something different and new. But does His vision continue? Are we living in grace? What is needed is not more man-made gods that require the impossible from us, but the God of the scriptures. The God that Jesus came to reveal. This is the God that world needs. But how will the world hear of the grace of God if His children do not speak it? And how will His children speak it if they themselves do not know it?    So I ask you, dear reader, is Jesus enough for you? How you answer this will show what side of the battle you are on and whether you are helping or hindering the gospel of God. The time of mixing the gospel with bondage must come to an end. Jesus is worth too much for it to continue.

 It is time to fight for grace.

“It is always refreshing to find a book that is clear on the gospel and emphasizes living under grace. Andrew Nelson shows how these two are essentially related. The reader will find many things to stretch his or her appreciation of God’s grace.”

—Charlie C. Bing, founder and director, GraceLife Ministries

“Is Jesus enough? If you are a Christian, the correct answer is Yes! But is that the real answer? Do you really believe that Jesus is enough for you? If you are asking these questions, welcome to the fight for grace. Andrew Nelson asked these questions. Life circumstances, disappointments and struggles pressed him for answers. In this wonderful book, he shares his journey to the answer Yes!—his fight for grace. Journey with him. You will be encouraged and find hope and strength for the battle.”

—Bob Christopher, president, People to People Ministries