The message of Grace or “The Experience of Grace” as I like
to call it, maybe to some a new phenomenon that is infiltrating the Christian
world today; it started with Joseph Prince a young Singaporean Minister coming
onto the scene about 3 years ago, and now it seems everyone from famous
Ministers like Creflo Dollar to writers like myself are catching “The
Experience of Grace”, but in reality The message of Grace is not a new concept
to the Christian community, as a matter of fact it was The totality of Paul’s
whole ministry in the New Testament and it was the second reason Paul preached
across the land, the first being to bring the message of Christ to the people. But
if you have been following my blogs, reading your Bible and praying for understanding
and interpretation of it, then you may already know that there are countless
accounts of God’s grace throughout the Old Testament as well.
The story of Cain and
Abel in the 4th chapter of the book of Genesis is one such Old
Testament story where surprisingly Grace was present. Most people know the
story of Cain and Able and how Cain murdered Abel because of what most people
thought to be jealousy over God accepting Abel’s sacrifice over Cain’s
offerings. Not to get deep into the story in this blog, but as you can see I
chose the words sacrifice and offerings for a reason. You see Cain offered God
an offering of his work, tilling the ground, while Abel gave God a blood
sacrifice, the first born of his flock. You see Cain brought to God a sacrifice
from his own sweat and tears, while Abel bought God a blood sacrifice and not
only did he bring him a blood sacrifice which was an early picture of Christ’s
blood sacrifice for us, but according to Hebrews
11:4, Abel brought his sacrifice by faith!
Abel knew his own works couldn’t cleanse him; he knew he
needed a blood sacrifice, while Cain thought his works would save him and give
him favor in the eyes of God!
This is where Grace comes into the picture because you see,
they both brought something to God, which in their eyes was probably good, but
God only wanted a blood sacrifice and He
only wanted it brought in faith! Abel brought a blood sacrifice and through
the shedding of the blood of the sacrifice and his faith in it, he received
favor from God by Grace, and God rejected Cain because he believed in his own
works; this is a picture of God’s Grace, receiving the favor of God not because of works, but because of our faith and the blood of a sacrifice, (In our case it is Christ)!
As Christians today we do exactly what Cain tried to do, we
try to work and bring to God the works of our own hands, (the tilling of the
ground) when all He really wants is a blood sacrifice and He wants it brought
in faith. What is that blood sacrifice
He wants you may ask, It’s Christ blood and it has already been shed for us, and
where does the faith come in you may say, by us having faith in Christ and His
finished work!
God’s forgiveness of our
sins and His desire for us to have an abundant life is not contingent upon us
offering our own works to Him. He is not asking us to work the ground and
then bring him offerings, as you see by Cain’s offer, He never did; He just wants us to accept the blood
sacrifice He has already provided for us through Jesus’s death, burial and
resurrection, and have Faith in His finished works.
You see Christ shed His blood for us and He did it so that
we would no longer have to scramble and bring him the works of our own hands or
blood sacrifices for that matter; Christ was our blood sacrifice, He is the
atonement of our sins. All God is asking
from us today is that we accept Him as Lord and Savior, love our neighbors as
He loved us, and accept His Love, Grace and Mercy!
Forever In His Grace!
Toinette Neube
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