Grace in Galatians (Part 211) – Grace Changed How I Understand Faith

https://youtu.be/FeND2vLyX0Q?si=PD-U-0yTW1M7_u8H

Today, we continue our focus on THE YEAR OF DISCOVERY, as we learn to maintain our posture of faith after God has revealed His plans for our future.

We are closing out our Grace in Galatians series with a handful of final messages on how grace changed everything in me. So far, I have told you how grace changed the way I see God and the way I see myself. Today, I want to tell you about the third great change. Grace changed the way I receive.

Key scriptures for this year:

2 Peter 3:18 GNT“But continue to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Savior, Jesus Christ. To Him be glory now and forever.”

Luke 10:20 Mirror“It’s time for you to rediscover who you are from Heaven’s perspective.”

1 John 3:10 Mirror“There is a very visible and vast difference between living one’s life from your God identity or from a fallen man’s mindset.”

Proverbs 25:2 NKJV“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.”

Jeremiah 29:13 NIV“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

Scripture we will study today:

Galatians 2:16 TPT“We know full well, for example, that the Jewish person is not made right with God by the works of religious law, but only through faith in Jesus, the Anointed One. His faithfulness, not ours, has saved us, and we have believed in him to be saved from the guilt of sin and not because we kept the law. For keeping the law will never save anyone.”

Galatians 3:2-3 TPT“So answer me this: Did the Holy Spirit come to you as a reward for keeping Jewish laws? No, you received him as a gift because you believed in the Messiah. Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by human effort?”

Galatians 3:11 TPT“It is obvious that no one achieves the righteousness of God by attempting to keep the law, for it is written: ‘The one who is in right standing with God lives by faith.'”

Supporting scriptures:

Ephesians 2:8-9 TPT“For it was only through this wonderful grace that we believed in him. Nothing we did could ever earn this salvation, for it was the gracious gift from God that brought us to Christ! So no one will ever be able to boast, for salvation is never a reward for good works or human striving.”

John 6:29 TPT“Jesus replied, ‘The work you can do for God starts with believing in the One he has sent to you.'”

Hebrews 11:6 TPT“And without faith living within us it would be impossible to please God. For we come to God in faith knowing that he is real and that he rewards the hearts that passionately seek him.”

Hebrews 4:9-10 TPT“So we conclude that there is still a full and complete ‘rest’ waiting for believers to experience. As we enter into God’s faith-rest life we cease from our own works, just as God celebrates his finished works and rests in them.”

Matthew 11:28-30 TPT“Are you weary, carrying a heavy burden? Then come to me. I will refresh your life, for I am your oasis. Simply join your life with mine. Learn my ways and you’ll discover that I’m gentle, humble, easy to please. You will find refreshment and rest in me. For all that I require of you will be pleasant and easy to bear.”

Setting the Stage:

For years, I tried to earn everything from God. I worked FOR God’s blessing. I worked FOR every breakthrough. I worked FOR God’s approval. Then grace freed me from trying to earn my righteousness through the Law, and I thought I was finally done with performance. But honestly, I was not. I had simply moved my performance-based mindset to another area of my life. I had made my faith the new WORK. Before 2012, my whole ministry was built on faith, and that was good, but it was incomplete. When I started to study the grace of God, the Holy Spirit showed me that grace comes first, and even the faith I use to receive is a gift He gave me. That revelation changed the way I receive from God forever. Let me walk you through it.

So, what does this mean for you today? A few things.

1. I Stopped Working FOR It And Started Receiving It By Faith.

The first change in how I receive was the change from earning to receiving. I used to think God’s blessings were things I had to work for. If I prayed enough, gave enough, and behaved enough, then maybe God would bless me. Then I read scriptures, like Galatians 2:16, where the Apostle Paul made it clear to me that we are not made right with God by the works of the Law, but by faith in Jesus. Right standing with God is not something you can earn. It is simply a gift you receive. The Law says, “Do, and you might get.” Grace says, “It is finished, now receive it.”

How this applies to you:

— Galatians 2:16 TPT says we are made right with God “only through faith in Jesus, the Anointed One. His faithfulness, not ours, has saved us.” Salvation does not rest on your faithfulness to God. It rests on His faithfulness to you.

— Righteousness is received by faith, not achieved by performance. This is a major part of what religious people have wrong in their theology.

— Ephesians 2:8-9 TPT says, “Nothing we did could ever earn this salvation… salvation is never a reward for good works or human striving.” Not one drop of what God gives you came from your effort. It all came from His grace.

— Romans 11:6 ERV says, “And if he chose them by grace, then it is not what they have done that made them God’s people. If they could be made God’s people by what they did, then God’s gift of grace would not really be a gift.” Grace is a gift. A gift is not a gift if you have to earn it. And if you attempt to earn it, you are attempting to convert it from a gift to a payment. 

— The pressure came off the day I realized the bill was already paid.  This is why I told you many times that if it is God’s will, then it’s also God’s bill. You don’t have to make it happen. You just have to stand in faith to receive what God has already provided. 

— Now, you may be thinking, “Wait a minute, Rick, are you saying we do nothing?” Absolutely not. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying we do something, and that something is faith. Faith is something you say. Faith is something you do. Faith is sometimes a seed that you sow based on what you believe God revealed to you about your future. There are some actions that you have to take in faith (without a doubt, without wavering), and you are taking those actions because you believe God already provided, not to make God move. That’s the revelation of a difference. 

— Walk into today as a receiver, not an earner. You are not working FOR the blessing. You are receiving FROM God’s finished work.

2. I Had Turned Faith Itself Into A Work.

Here is the part of my story most people miss. When grace freed me from trying to earn righteousness through the Law, I thought I was done with performance. I was wrong. I had simply moved my performance from the Law to my faith. For years, before 2012, my whole ministry was built on faith. I taught faith, I preached faith, and everything in my ministry was about faith. My teaching was not incorrect, but it was incomplete. Because what I had done, without even realizing it, was take faith and turn it into a work to perform. Paul asked the Galatians the very question the Holy Spirit was asking me. Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by human effort?

How this applies to you:

— Galatians 3:3 TPT says, “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by human effort?” That was me. I began by grace (salvation), and then I tried to finish by effort. I just relabeled the effort and called it “MY” faith.

— I escaped the Law as a work, and then I turned my faith into a work.

— In my mind (mainly because this is what I was taught), I had to make my confessions, speak my declarations, and pray for a certain amount of time every day, and I piled all of that pressure on myself to do these things so God could bless me. I had made faith religious. 

— I actually believed that if I did not do all of it, God would not bless me. And if I did receive, I assumed it was because I produced enough faith and God was responding to me. I had turned faith into a transaction.

— A performance-based mindset dressed up in something that looks and sounds like it makes sense, is still performance (it’s still being religious).

— All I had done was trade one treadmill for another. If I did not receive something from God, I felt guilty for not having enough faith. I lived on that treadmill for years.

— If your faith has become a source of pressure and striving, check your foundation. Faith was never meant to be the thing you work up to get God to move. It was designed to be the means by which you receive what God already planned. In this way, faith has a REST component that is critical.

3. While God Does All He Does By Grace, He Requires Us To Walk And Live By Faith.

I will share with you the revelation that set me free. I started studying God’s grace in 2012. The result of this study changed my life and ministry. I learned there can be no faith where there is no grace. Grace always comes first. God does all the providing by grace, and even the faith I use to receive what He provided is a gift He gave me. My faith does not move God to act. It simply lays hold of what grace already placed within reach. God does the work by grace. I respond by walking in faith. That is the divine order, and once I saw it, I stopped striving (and stressing), and started truly receiving (whether I felt worthy or not).

How this applies to you:

— Galatians 3:2 TPT says, “Did the Holy Spirit come to you as a reward for keeping Jewish laws? No, you received him as a gift because you believed in the Messiah.” You did not work the Spirit into your life. You received Him by faith, and even that faith was a response to His grace.

— There can be no faith where there is no grace. Grace comes first, every single time.

— I cannot exercise faith that God did not first give me by grace. Even my faith is a gift. That one revelation took all the pressure off. I am not the source of my faith. He is.

— John 6:29 NIV says, “Jesus answered, ‘The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.’ “ The only work God asks of you is to believe, and even your believing is His grace at work in you. Faith is not how you earn from God. It is how you receive from God.

— My faith does not twist God’s arm; it lays hold of what is in God’s hand.

— Galatians 3:11 TPT says, “The one who is in right standing with God lives by faith.” God provides everything by grace, and He asks me to live by faith. He does the giving. I do the receiving. 

— When I did not understand grace, I used to think that if I released my faith and God blessed me, then the blessing came as God’s response to MY FAITH. No, when I finally understood God’s grace, I realized that I am not even authorized to release my faith until I know what God already gave me (GOD’S PART IS FIRST) by grace. God’s grace comes first, and then we simply receive what God has already provided!

— This is why I teach that revelation is the authorization for your faith. Look at how Jesus lived. He said He only said what He heard the Father say, and He only did what He saw the Father do. The revelation always came first, and that revelation became the authorization for everything He said and everything He did. The same order holds for you and me. We have to hear before we speak, and we have to see before we do. You are not even authorized to release your faith until you know what God has already provided by grace. God reveals what grace already supplied, and then your faith responds to lay hold of it. Revelation first. Faith second. That is the divine order, and that is what I had wrong before I got a revelation of God’s grace. 

4. The Highest Form Of Faith Is Rest.

Here is where grace took me that religion never could. It taught me to rest. For most of my life, I thought rest was laziness and striving (doing something) was faithfulness. I had it backward. Galatians 3:18 says our inheritance comes by promise, not by keeping the Law. If it is a promise, then my job is not to strive for it. My job is to rest in the One who promised. Hebrews calls it the faith-rest life. The highest expression of faith is not doing more. It is resting while God works. When you can be still in the middle of the storm, Heaven takes notice.

How this applies to you:

— Hebrews 4:9-10 TPT says, “As we enter into God’s faith-rest life we cease from our own works, just as God celebrates his finished works and rests in them.” Rest is not you quitting. It is you trusting.

— Rest is not the absence of work; it is the absence of striving (and stressing).

— Matthew 11:28-30 TPT says, “Are you weary, carrying a heavy burden? Then come to me. I will refresh your life, for I am your oasis.” Jesus did not say work harder and eventually find rest. He said come to me and find rest right now. Rest is not a destination; it is a Person.

— I want you to picture Jesus asleep in the boat while the storm raged and the disciples panicked. He was not anxious, because He knew His Father and He knew His purpose. That is the kind of faith God wants you to have. Sleeping in the middle of the storm because you already know how the story ends.

— Hebrews 4:11 says we are to labor to enter that rest. Catch the paradox. The only striving God endorses is the striving to stop striving. The one effort worth making is the effort to lay your effort down. Rest does not come naturally to driven people, so sometimes you have to fight your way into it. It is the only fight that ends in peace.

— When you truly enter God’s rest, you treat the matter as settled in Heaven, because it is. It is a done deal. Earthly delays stop rattling you, because you are no longer waiting to see if God will come through. You already know He has. The pressure of the situation loses its grip the moment you decide to trust His faithfulness.

— Think about the farmer. Once the seed is in the ground, he sleeps through the night fully confident the seed is working, even though he cannot see it working. While he rests, the seed grows. The seed is always working. That is the faith-rest life in a picture. While you are resting, God is working behind the scenes on your behalf. You do not have to stay up worrying about the harvest. You just have to trust the seed, and the God who makes it grow.

— What belongs to you cannot miss you, so you can rest while you wait.

— I had to learn this the hard way. I used to run ahead of God, trying to force doors open by my own strength, and the same striving that infected my faith also stole my peace. When I finally learned to rest and flow with God instead of forcing things, the very things I had been chasing started chasing me.

— Peace does not come after everything goes right. God gives you peace in the middle of it, and that peace becomes the foundation for your breakthrough. Stop striving. Start resting. This is #TheGraceLife.

Declaration of Faith:

Father, I thank You that I receive Your blessings by faith, not by works!

I stopped working FOR what You already finished. Now I receive it!

I refuse to turn my faith into a new kind of work!

There can be no faith where there is no grace!

Even my faith is a gift, and grace comes first every time!

My faith does not twist Your arm; it takes hold of Your hand!

You do all You do by grace, and I respond by walking in faith!

The just shall live by faith, and I am the just!

Rest is not weakness. It is the highest form of faith!

I receive by faith, I rest in grace, and GREATER IS COMING FOR ME!

I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen!

This is Today’s Word. Apply it and prosper!