Compelling Love

Grace and truth are united in God.  Teaching grace without truth leads to licentiousness.  Teaching truth without grace is crushing.  Randy Alcorn in his book, “The Grace and Truth Paradox”, describes how to walk in both grace and truth as  Christ did.  Reviewer Nancy Leigh Demoss writes, “In his probing, incisive manner, Randy Alcorn presses us to examine our lives for any lack of balance. He paints a compelling picture of what it means to walk as Christ did, in both grace and truth.”

Randy Alcorn writes:

“Hate the sin, but love the sinner.” No one did either like Jesus. Truth hates sin. Grace loves sinners.  Those full of grace and truth do both.

People thirst for the real Jesus. Nothing less can satisfy. Grace and truth are His fingerprints. We show people Jesus only when we show them grace and truth. Anything less than both is neither.

The Grace and Truth Paradox: Responding with Christlike Balance (LifeChange Books) (p. 87, 91) Kindle Edition.

John’s gospel declares that grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

John 1 (NKJV)
The Eternal Word
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. ⁴ In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. ⁵ And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

The Word Becomes Flesh
¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
¹⁵ John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.’”
¹⁶ And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Grace and truth are one in Jesus Christ, as described by Psalm 85.

Psalm 85 (NKJV)
⁹ Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him,
That glory may dwell in our land.
¹⁰ Mercy and truth have met together;
Righteousness and peace have kissed.
¹¹ Truth shall spring out of the earth,
And righteousness shall look down from heaven.
¹² Yes, the Lord will give what is good;
And our land will yield its increase.
¹³ Righteousness will go before Him,
And shall make His footsteps our pathway.

Jesus gave the parable of the prodigal son picturing God’s grace and forgiveness.  When the wayward son came back in repentance to his father, he was astonished by his father’s grace and forgiveness.

Luke 15 (NKJV)
²⁰ “And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. ²¹ And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
²² “But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. ²³ And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; ²⁴ for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.

The grace that comes through Jesus Christ both forgives, and empowers us “to go and sin no more”, as seen in Jesus’ forgiveness and restoration of the  woman caught in adultery in John chapter 8:

John 8 (NKJV)
¹⁰ When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?”
¹¹ She said, “No one, Lord.”
And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”
¹² Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

The book of Romans teaches that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and all can be fully forgiven and restored through Jesus Christ.

Romans 3 (NKJV)
God’s Righteousness Through Faith
²¹ But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, ²² even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

Romans 6 (NKJV)
²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We are saved by grace through faith, not by works.  Then we become His workmanship, expressing Christ in truth and love.

Ephesians 2 (NKJV)
⁴ But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), ⁶ and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷ that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not of works, lest anyone should boast. ¹⁰ For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Peter describes a walk in grace and truth in this way:

1 Peter 1 (NKJV)
²² Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, ²³ having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,

David Krause, dhkrause@neteze.com, 5/14/2017, https://compellinglove.net/

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