Wonderful, Good News

KeithTrumboBooks.com

??????????? The Bible refers to the result of cooperating with the desires Jesus provides as fruit. I can cooperate as I trust in His grace. That means I cooperate by asking for His help to be honest with Him. An honest relationship with Jesus means He removes the protective layers of packaging around my selfishness that can spoil my thinking. Then, as His grace fills my cup, He can give me options I can choose to follow. ?In other words, as I invite Jesus to help me be honest about my choices, my desires and to provide clarity on how I can become blind to the negative results of my choices, I can then embrace the power of His blood on the cross to cover my sins and welcome His options. Asking Jesus to provide feedback and clarity regarding my choices and the results of my choices takes faith. Faith means I trust in Jesus and know I cannot trust Him without His help.

??????????? Remember, doing the right thing does not save you. A relationship with Jesus that acknowledges your need for His help, desires to receive His help to be honest with Him, welcomes the clarity He can provide about your choices, seeks Him as the abundant provider of grace, embraces the convicting and teaching power of His love, confesses mistakes and selfish desires, then invites Him to give you new desires and the strength to follow those desires summaries an honest relationship with Jesus that produces His fruit.

??????????? To experience a loved-by-grace relationship with Jesus, we need to realize how Jesus warned us that we can be a good person yet not have a real relationship with Him. I have known people who did not read the Bible, pray, go to church or seek any kind of a relationship with Jesus, yet they made good moral choices in their lives. I would even say that they were great people to have as friends. Obviously, people can learn to do the right thing without Jesus’ help. For example, you get fired if you lie to your boss at work. If you steal from a store, you go to jail. Our selfishness can be motivated by unpleasant consequences. Humans can do the right thing because they want to avoid trouble.

??????????? Now, the harder truth to accept is that people claiming to follow Jesus can do amazing religious things without knowing Him. Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” (Matt. 7:21–23). Prophesied, cast out demons, and performed miracles in Jesus’ name—an impressive list of accomplishments. I could see a person with those credentials having the respect of many religious people. However, Jesus informed us that He did not know these committed miracle workers. ?????

??????????? The wonderful, good news of the Gospel reveals that “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we did in righteousness, but in accordance with His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5 NASB). As I seek to cooperate with Jesus by asking for His help to experience the “washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,” He helps me to have an honest, genuine, open, non-blind, loved-by-grace relationship with Him. Philippians 2:13 also tells me, “for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose” (NIV). Ephesians 2:8,9 reminds me that the gift of salvation is a gift of grace, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast” (NIV).

??????????? Jesus’ grace really is wonderful, good news that we can trust. Jesus gives us the help we need as we seek His help, ask for His love to search our hearts, and then choose to embrace both the gifts and the conviction He provides. When you get to heaven, would you like to sit down with King David and have a conversation about grace? Do you think that he would be willing to talk about His mistakes and bad choices? Might he acknowledge how he had become blind to his selfishness and dependent upon his strength?

??????????? Jesus described a healthy, growing relationship with Him in simple terms when He said, “Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing (John 15:4,5 NIV).” The problem in this passage reveals how humans face a real challenge in staying connected to Jesus. The solution means that the only way to produce the fruit of His love in our lives is to stay connected with Him.

??????????? In John 15 Jesus described a surrendered, cooperative, dependent vine-branch relationship that helps us with our choices. He could describe this kind of relationship because that was how He got help from His Father in heaven with His choices. When Jesus faced Satan in the wilderness after fasting for forty days, Satan appeared and tempted Him to turn stones into bread. As you can imagine, this was a weak moment for Jesus. He had to choose between solving His hunger problem with His divine power or depending upon His Father in Heaven.

??????????? Jesus responded to Satan’s temptation by saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4). Jesus chose to utilize His Father in Heaven’s solution to the food problem. Jesus used the Word to guide Him to understand the solution He needed to the problem He faced. After Satan tempted Jesus several more times, His Father in heaven sent angels to minister to Him.??

??????????? Unfortunately, humans do not naturally like to wait upon, cooperate with or live as a branch from the vine. Fortunately, the Holy Spirit can help us live as a branch from the vine by helping us to understand and cooperate with Jesus’ way of thinking. He can also provide the healing of forgiveness when we don’t. Jesus told His disciples the Spirit would be with them and “teach them all things” (John 14:26). Teaching us all things means we get to learn about why Jesus’ way of thinking is best and how His Word provides real solutions for our problems.

??????????? Remember, the branch has the fruit, yet the branch gets all the nutrients it needs from the vine. The vine is the foundation for the strength and life of the branch. It’s wonderful, good news to understand that Jesus is our vine, we can live as His branch, and He produces the fruit of His love on His branches. He provides what we need to have a real, honest relationship with Him. Then we get to enjoy the fruit. What wonderful, good news!