Grace Beyond Your Wildest Dreams: A Guest Post by Luke Beling

***This post is written by a good friend of my husband and I. He and his wife, Kristy, have been fellow discoverers of the Gospel with us this year. Read to the end. Your heart will burn with delight!***

“Tell me, what’s the point of light that you have to strike a match to find?”- Josh Ritter

I’ve been scratching matches for most of my journey with God: to find His light, His abundant life promised in John 10:10. I’ve turned tables and cleaned counters in hopes of coming across just a fraction of the life that the gospel affirms. And every failed attempt has left me with the begging question singer/songwriter Josh Ritter asks: “What is the point of light if you have to strike a match to find it?” 

The image of God’s light, of what daily life should look like, has hardly been dull from the onset of my relationship with Jesus. But the availability and provision of His light manifested in my life has felt as sure as sinking sand. As a result, my thoughts for the past 10 years have been: “What am I doing wrong or what am I not doing right, preventing God from being present in my days?” 

The only conclusion for such questioning is a slow death governed by the hands of religion. For no man, save one, is capable of answering such a question, then providing a way out of this cold cul-de-sac. 

For ten years I tried to keep up with Jesus, but daily invoices collecting in pockets will make any man heavy as the sea. I was God’s number one accountant; keeping track, “gardening” my soul by pruning the rights and wrongs. I met Jesus before I met religion. When I met religion he fooled me into thinking he was Jesus and so began the deception. The good news slowly transformed from love to a life-long invoice, delivered by subtle snares of religion. If I met payment, the goods received were beyond this world. I paid for a while, and enjoyed the illusion of the "giving-receiving" gospel, proud of my efforts and hard work. The price, however, kept increasing and eventually I ran out of gold. So I fell asleep and kept the daily dues in the cubbyhole of my car, hoping God would forget to collect. But continually without words, in the deep of my heart, I would wonder and think: If the gospel is a life-long invoice that is scarcely payable, then what use is its glory and substance for mankind? 

At the beginning of January of this year (2012), I began to wake from that awful nightmare to the reality of the true gospel of Jesus Christ: A receipt for man’s deepest dreams and hopes, paid in full by God. 

It’s easy for most Christians to agree that salvation and the Christian life is fueled by grace and the free gift of Jesus. But the outworking of that statement receives numerous and vast interpretation throughout individual believers and churches alike. While being duped by religion over the last ten years, I would have most definitely said that the Christian life finds its bedrock on grace and the free gift of Jesus. But then why did I struggle? If my relationship with Jesus was cemented on this free gift, then why did it feel like paying taxes? The understanding of grace and its practical implications for our lives, therefore, is vitally important. If even a hint of religion mixes with the purest good news, we no longer have good news. 

I believe that my core struggle with religion can be attributed to one basic misunderstanding of a beautiful truth: The gospel is a receipt, not an invoice. 

This statement is incredibly important and should be used to filter every aspect of the Christian life. A receipt is always an issue of proof regarding an object of desire that has already been paid for, but an invoice, no matter the cost, is the promise of the desired with a clause demanding payment. An invoice promises a future receiving. A receipt proves an already received. The idea of invoice Christianity is an advocation that the cross of Christ did not accomplish everything. If there is more that we have to do for healing, holiness, righteousness and completeness, then Jesus really didn’t take care of the sin problem entirely. The reason why healing, holiness, righteousness, and completeness are in correlation with sin is because if it were not for sin entering into our world, everything would be perfect. So if sin was completely destroyed and taken care of at the cross by Jesus, then holiness, righteousness, healing, and completeness are here in full and we are therefore living in an age that is even more glorious than the Garden of Eden. 

The receipt of God simply states: “Be because of what I have done.” The invoice demands: “Do to become.” 

Sometimes it’s easier to know what good news is when we know what good news isn’t. These are the invoices I’ve carried for the past ten years. Don’t worry, below them you will find the truth, the receipts issued by God for the entire human race. 

Invoice 1- Salvation is only for those who repent with tears, confess with a sincere heart, and recite correct words to God stating properly the understanding of sin, going to hell, and needing a savior for rescue unto heaven.

Receipt 1- “ Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits.” (Jas. 1) “He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world…”  (Eph 1.) We had no part in our salvation. God did everything. Salvation was accomplished for every man at the cross of Christ. When we believe, we are simply walking into that which is already true. The only requirement for salvation for every man is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

Invoice 2- Human beings are designed sinners. We are inherently bad and prone towards sin. 

Receipt 2-  “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” (Gen 1:26).” We are made in the image of God. Our very design has been crafted perfectly by God. Man’s deepest desire is to be who he was created to be. Sin is only a distortion of that desire and not a reflection of the design of man. Sin for humans is like a car being fueled by water. It doesn’t fit. It is not what we are made for, believer or unbeliever. When someone has cancer, do we say they are cancer? Do we think that cancer is in cooperation with the makeup of their body? Sin is only a virus, not an identity. By identifying man as sinner (believer or unbeliever) we are calling him something that is contrary to his design and therefore his truest name.

Invoice 3- Humans have a sin nature and we must battle the flesh through a daily process, putting the old self to death. Make sure you feed the “spirit dog” and not the “flesh dog.” 

Receipt 3- “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires” (Gal 5:24). Paul repeatedly states in Romans that we are dead to sin, we have been crucified with Christ, we should no longer live in sin etc. Why would he say such things if we are to battle sin? If we are battling sin, then we are somehow still alive to it. There is a huge difference between “sin covered” and “sin extracted”. I may believe that God has forgiven me of my sins, but only to keep sinning. Or, the truth, I believe God has forgiven me of my sins and eradicated the sin-producing factory inside of me that I should no longer live in sin because I am dead to sin. Paul uses the word “crucified” not “crucifying”. This is huge. Crucified means dead, not becoming dead. When did we die to sin? Paul says that we died to sin when Jesus died. The idea of any man battling sin because of an inherent sin nature is only an illusion. Truth confirms that every man was crucified on the cross of Christ. 

Invoice 4- Holiness is a lifelong pursuit of becoming more like God. We are in positions of righteousness but this righteousness must be “worked out” for it to be true. 

Receipt 4- “And to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness…” (Eph 4:24). Often times, righteousness and holiness are deemed as lifelong pursuits to become more like God. If this were true then Jesus didn’t take care of sin completely. There is no other conclusion to juggle such thinking. This type of reasoning is invoice-Christianity: I have to do something to become holy or righteous. 

Other times holiness and righteousness get referred to as positions of standing with God. This is true and wonderful news, but it can be very misleading if it were the only truths about these words. God doesn’t accept us, while turning a blind eye to the “evil” within us. The only way we can be right with God is because we are right according to His design and original plan for our lives. Perfect in His eyes doesn’t mean theoretical perfection or God choosing to see us as perfect despite our darkness. It simply means we are perfect. We are holy. We are sanctified. If the very nature (the sin nature crucified with Jesus) causing us to be unholy and unrighteous is now dead then what conclusion do we have about perfection and holiness? We are perfectly like God now. Eph 4:24 states that the new self has already been created (not something to come) and that it is in replica of God in true righteousness and holiness. 

Before thinking that all of this is just too good to be true, let me ask you one question that I constantly ask myself. When we enter into heaven one day and see Jesus face to face and the entirety of the work that He accomplished on the cross, will our response be: “This is exactly how I imagined things to be.” Or will we emphatically proclaim: “This is just too good to be true!! Thank you Jesus!!” 

Every revelation of Jesus, his finished work, and his manifestation on earth receives a jubilant, “This is way too good to be true!!”

Let me assure you that I mostly definitely believe in prayer, worship, and active relationship with God and am not advocating a passive Christianity. However, every activity and motivation in the new covenant must come from a place of rest and an understanding that we are holding receipts because of the price that Jesus paid. There is no future event or activity (no matter how holy) that will bring anyone into more completeness, holiness, or healing. For all of this was accomplished on the cross. The only process is the process of illusion fading into reality. And illusion is always illusion and reality is always reality, no matter the belief or experience of any man. 

A year ago I would pray to receive, worship to appease, and do in hopes of becoming. But now I pray because of the knowledge of abundance, worship because I am thankful, and do because I know what manner of man I am. Our good deeds simply spring from a reflection of who we are; not because we are trying to accomplish and transform into people who we want to become.

The gospel has always been a receipt, even when we didn’t believe or respond appropriately to it. I’d like to say that I’m a new man since learning these truths, but I’m only the man I’ve always been because of a God who stopped at nothing to rescue, save, heal, sanctify, perfect, and deliver me completely and entirely, in only one day. 

Luke Beling

***To check out Luke's blog that is full of his own poetry, short stories, songs and more, click here.***