God’s grace continues to move throughout the world, century after century. From the very beginning when sin first entered the world, God in His great mercy and grace covered Adam and Eve’s naked bodies. Later, He poured out His grace when He made a covenant with His chosen nation of Israel and gave them His law and commandments.
Then, out of His love, God promised that the Messiah, a Savior, would come to live among us one day so that this “tsunami wave of grace” would cover us all and it would be so crystal clear and vivid. This Savior would demonstrate the Father’s heart – full of truth and grace.
When Jesus came, He began a whole new wave of grace that has continued to move through His followers, the Church, even today.
Christ’s agenda for the world was that His followers would continue moving this wave of grace forward.
For us as Christians to understand how this wave of grace is carried out today, we must first learn about how God chose to carry it out when His Church first began.
In the book of Acts before Jesus ascended into heaven, He tells his followers that they would be empowered by the Holy Spirit to be His messengers, to go to the ends of the Earth to let everyone know there’s hope and deliverance in Him.
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
In other words, Jesus told them: “I’m going to send you to finish what I began.” And this is still God’s global assignment for us today.
Jesus wants this unstoppable “tsunami wave” of grace to build up in us and to go out through us.
Here are four ways we can ride the wave of His grace and get on board with what God’s doing in our world:
1. Become confident in Jesus’ presence and purpose.
Jesus’ followers in the first century had a pretty big mission to accomplish. There were only 120 of them and they needed to bring the Gospel to the ends of the Earth. To do this, they needed to have confidence in the person and purpose of Christ.
Jesus also calls you and me to live in such a way that we expect God to do supernatural things, provide for our needs in ways we do not understand, and change things in our lives in ways we did not think were possible.
2. Be clear on your calling.
Did you know that every believer is a full-time missionary bearing witness to Jesus? We’re either a dynamic, positive witness or a bad witness. As bearers of God’s Holy Spirit, we are all called to represent Christ and share the hope that we have in Him.
3. Be dependent on the Holy Spirit.
“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)
In John 15, Jesus explains that unless we’re abiding in Him, we won’t be effective witnesses for Him (bear fruit). This means staying connected in our relationship with Him by consistently and regularly praying, studying the Bible and obeying what it says. As long as we are staying connected to Him, the Holy Spirit will give us the grace and strength we need to carry out His agenda.
4. Be obedient to today’s truth.
God’s will today is to obey the next thing. A good question we should all ask is: “God, is there anything that I should be doing right now?” I find that there are times God speaks very clearly to me, but I don’t want to do it. So I put it off. I might even do really good things during that time, but that isn’t the next thing I should be doing. Sound familiar?
The organ of spiritual growth is not knowledge. It is application. If God tells you, “I want you to share the Gospel with a neighbor,” do it today!
It’s my prayer that we’ll begin to learn to walk in the specific calling that God has for each one of us.
