Living in the Grace of God by Rufus Rob

Author:Rufus, Rob [Rufus, Rob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL012120
ISBN: 9781850789789
Publisher: Authentic Media
Published: 2007-05-03T17:00:00+00:00

Some years ago, I was walking through the streets of Hong Kong with a friend of mine from South Africa. As we walked through the red light district some prostitutes came up to us and tried to solicit us. At first I felt outraged that they would approach me, a ‘holy man of God’. Then God whispered in my heart, ‘Show grace to the next one.’ So when the next one approached me with her pimp, I said, ‘How much do you charge?’ My friend’s eyes nearly popped out of his head as he asked himself, ‘Has Rob gone over the edge? Has it all got too much for him?’

She named her price. Without batting an eyelid I said, ‘That’s not enough. You should charge more than that. That’s too low a price. Jesus paid so much for you that he gave everything he had. He gave his life for you.’

The woman just looked at me. Her pimp grabbed her arm and started pulling her away, screaming at me in Chinese. Although I didn’t understand the language, I knew he wasn’t complimenting me! As he was pulling her away, the woman looked in my face.

‘I knew him once,’ she said.

I guarantee you that at one time that woman went to a legalistic religious church.

Am I endorsing prostitution? Of course not! Jesus would never do that. But there is a place to show grace to people so that redemptive life can flow. We need to fight the religious spirit so that people like that prostitute can come into the church. I want to see churches planted all over the world where people can come in and find grace.

The people who live in the grace of God are people who learn to love one another and accept one another. Church becomes family when we live in the grace of God. People living in the grace of God pray for one another more, reach out to the lost more and value people more. They start feeding the hungry, clothing the poor and going amongst the broken street people restoring dignity to them. They go beyond the walls of their building to infiltrate the world and mix with sinners. They help those who are sick. They know it is not the Christian’s job to judge whether the illnesses people suffer from are what they deserve. None of us deserve salvation. Just because someone is dying of a disease like Aids doesn’t make them any less deserving of salvation! We must show non-judgemental love and mercy to a sick and dying world.

If, after receiving grace, people still sin continually and refuse to be disciplined, then the process of biblical judgement must come. There is a place for that, but it is a rare extreme case. We must keep uppermost in our minds the truth that the church is a community of grace.

We must not be intimidated by the legalists at any time. We must not underestimate the power of their deception and fear, but we must never give in to it.

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