This maybe one of our most daunting challenges; to daily faith the gospel of grace for yourself and others aggressively. ‘Aggressively’ literally means it will be marked by obtrusive energy and will be strong in effect and intention. Wow! Too daily apprehend/faith grace strongly and intentionally toward ourselves and others.
Instead, most are passive about their daily faith in the gospel of grace. Whatever will be will be? No! May it never be!
"Your salvation is not a reward for good behavior! It was a grace thing from start to finish; you had no hand in it. Even the gift to believe simply reflects His faith! Eph.2:8 (Mirror)
You did not invent faith; it was God's faith to begin with! It is from faith to faith, Rom. 1:17 (Mirror) He is both the source and conclusion of faith." Heb. 12:2 (Mirror)
This aggressive grace journey progresses in/by a 'mind shift' away from re-penance (faith in the law) to (faith in grace). "The word 'repentance' is a fabricated word from the Latin, penance, and to even give it more 'religious' mileage, the English rendering became re-penance!" Francois du Toit
That is not what the Greek word means at all! The true word that sets the journey of grace, by faith in motion is 'Metanoia'. This comes from (‘meta’)-meaning together with, and (‘nous’)-meaning to mind together with God's mind; continuously perpetuated by a 'radical mind-shift.'
Romans 3:27 (Mirror) "A mind shift from trying to impress God with/by your behavior to faith righteousness in Christ, is fundamental. There is no life left in the old system, it is dead and gone; you have to move on."
Francois du Toit's research on 're-penance' and its misuse; 'a shifting and change of mind' gets you thinking/meditating/focused on 'transformation'. Repentance is a vital 'part' of the grace by faith journey of being transformed into the image of Christ. Why? Because it gets us to turn away (once and for all) from a failed, fallen minding of ourselves; and turning instead to living in God's mind-set.
We can now truly move on beyond ’re-penance' and the sin-consciousness it produces to a moment by moment awareness of sharing in and being covered by Christ's righteousness. God's mind-set, thoughts and opinion of us becomes our plumb line. We literally take on the 'mind of Christ.'
Man, via 'religion' built a doctrine of 're-penance'; which gets us to agree with a faith based on our performance, instead of the finished ‘grace’ work of Christ. And this renders us 'impotent' to the power of being transformed completely into the image of Christ by grace, through faith.
Further; the thief never owned, nor gets ownership of us! He merely takes advantage of our fallen mind-set, and perpetuates this lie, as the accuser of the brethren. "God did not buy man back from the devil, but in the New Covenant of Grace, He redeemed us from our own ignorance, our fallen (Adamic) mindsets."
The fallen mind-set passed laws of performance for acceptance. "All that passing laws against sin did was produce more law-breakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah (Jesus), invites us into life--a life that goes on and on and on, world without end." Romans 5:20-21 (Msg)
Papa's minding of us becomes a continuous re-minding us of our acceptance in the beloved, not performance!
In the grip of Papa’s Aggressive grace, Ron Ross
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