It's All Free

All that truly counts in your heart and then comes out of you looking really good and beautiful is produced as a grace of knowing that God in Christ has justified you, which means He has made you authentically and genuinely good, and that He has given you His righteousness, holiness, redemption, sanctification, and every blessing, because Jesus earned entirely everything for you for entirely nothing from you. In Him you have been given every blessing already for free. That’s going to affect you, and that is His plan!

Believing that fact is the challenge, earning it is not.  Anything that teaches less than that makes you crazy.  Maybe you’ve noticed.

The gospel loses its dazzle when you believe that you must work or serve or tithe in order to earn blessings from God.  Tell me that you don’t become like the elder brother of the prodigal, working in the fields to earn what you have already been given.  Now that’s crazy.

However, you live best when you live by faith in the complete sufficiency of what Christ did for you—not just forgiven, because of His perfect sin removal system, but given everything that He has.  Everything from God for you is all for free.  The earning is all done, and you can rest.

Taking dictation from God, Isaiah wrote and Jesus fulfilled centuries later, chapter 55:1 “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!  ("Well, if I have no money, how can I buy?"  Believe and come near in order to see that it’s all yours. . .for free.)
 Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost” (italics mine).

The apostle Paul, himself dazzled by “it’s all free,” wrote to the Ephesians, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ."  (Ephesians 1:3)

Your life with God is not about a sacrifice you make, but a belief and a trust and a rest in a sacrifice He made.  Because of Him, it’s all free for you.

(This is a transcript of yesterday’s video, “It’s All Free,” and is for those who might rather read than watch.  Too see the video, click http://youtu.be/yidEJnSb1TA.)