Grace Empowers Us to Walk Holy
1 Peter 1:13-16 “Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; (14) as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; (15) but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, (16) because it is written, "be holy, for I am holy.”
Some in the body of Christ have become confused because of a distorted message of grace that has been taught in the church. They think that God was a God of wrath under the Old Covenant and that He demanded holiness from those who served Him. But under the New Covenant God is now a God of love and no longer requires holiness from us, and because we are under grace God no longer holds us accountable for our lifestyles. God however has never changed and He never will, for our Lord is just as holy as He ever was and still requires that those who serve Him must be holy. This truth is clearly revealed to us by the Holy Spirit through the apostle Peter in the passage of scripture quoted above. In our own ability however, none of us are able to live the righteous lifestyle that the Christian walk demands, for even though we have been made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, we still need to walk in that righteousness.
Hebrews 4:14-16 “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. (15) For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. (16) Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
God would be unjust to require us to walk in holiness if it were not possible for us to do that. God is not unjust, and so it is definitely possible for us to walk in holiness. Where a lot of Christians miss it however, is that they try to walk in holiness in their own ability and end up failing miserably. We have seen in the previous section that God’s grace was never intended for us to be able to continue in sin once we are saved. But rather the grace of God is intended to enable us to overcome sin, for we have a Saviour who overcame sin in the flesh for us so that we can overcome sin in the flesh through Him. As revealed to us in the passage of scripture quoted above, if ever we find that we are being tempted to commit sin then we are encouraged by God to boldly approach His throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and grace to help us overcome the temptation of sin. And so we see that it is only through God’s enabling grace that we can overcome sin in the flesh and thus walk in holiness. Clearly the Lord has made His grace available to us to overcome sin in our lives, and He has not made His grace available to us to allow sin to continue to reign in our lives.
2 Corinthians 12:9 “And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Therefore, most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
In the passage of scripture quoted above the apostle Paul related to us what the Lord taught him about His grace. The context of this passage is that Paul was experiencing a lot of persecution for his preaching of the gospel, and so on three separate occasions Paul asked the Lord to remove the persecution from him. It was only on Paul’s third request that the Lord finally answered Paul, and as quoted above the Lord explained to Paul that He was not going to remove his persecution because the Lord’s grace was all that he needed to overcome his persecution. And so Paul learnt a valuable lesson from the Lord Jesus on that day, i.e. that His grace enabled Paul to overcome any weakness he had in his life. That same principle applies to all of the Lord’s saints, for His grace is available to all of us and so we too are able to overcome any temptation of sin that we may encounter in life. Nevertheless if ever we do succumb to sin then we have a faithful High Priest who forgives our sins when we confess and repent of those sins (1 John 1:9). But that is not God’s best, for His best is that we come before His throne of grace and in faith ask for His aid in overcoming the sins of the flesh. When we do that His abundant grace is poured out in our hearts which enables us to overcome every temptation that this world brings across our paths, and we will find that we no longer succumb to those sins anymore.
Michael E.B. Maher
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