“I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.” (Song of Solomon 6:3) When I encountered the Spirit of Grace a few years ago on the beach, one of the greatest shifts in my paradigm was the sense of identity I received from just being God’s beloved. In the ministry that I led at the…

“Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law?” (Galatians 4:21) I can just hear Paul’s plea: “Please don’t go back to that bondage! You’ve been set free! Stay free!!” A few verses later he says, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us…

In Galatians 4, Paul tells us that Sarah and Hagar and their sons represent the two covenants – law and grace. The Old Covenant and the New Covenant. …which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar— for this Hagar is…

If we reject God’s grace, God doesn’t reject us. God is secure. He sees His children speaking against His grace and hurting one another, just as Ishmael persecuted Isaac: but He still loves all His children, just as Abraham still loved Ishmael. If you know who you are in Christ and the great eternal riches…

How appropriate that today’s “grace nugget” was scheduled for Independence Day ~ it’s all about true freedom. Have you heard this verse on freedom? “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” (Galatians 5:1, NKJV) Another version says it…

A few years ago, my husband, Mark, asked a very influential pastor if he believed that a Christian could lose his salvation. The pastor responded quickly saying, “I think it’s a bad question.” Because skirting the issue by not answering it wasn’t acceptable to Mark, he pressed the issue by asking the question a second…

There is no more significant book than Hebrews in discovering the meaning behind the sacrificial death of Jesus. The book of Hebrews was written to Jewish people. Some of them were Christians, and some were on the brink of receiving Jesus as their Messiah and the final sacrifice for their sins. The entire book of…

Each chapter of the book of Hebrews contrasts Jesus in some respect with something inferior. Continuing from yesterday, we see the “better things” of the New Covenant in Jesus’ blood that have come to replace the Old Covenant sacrifices and works of the law. Chapter 7, The priesthood of Jesus is superior to the Levitical…

If the Ten Commandments had worked to make man righteous, then there would have been no reason for the New Covenant. Jesus would not have needed to die. “For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.” (Hebrews 8:7)1God found fault with the old system of…

Jesus replaced law with grace…labor with rest…fear of punishment with perfect love…separation with union with Him. In Hebrews 8, the writer gives the Old Testament prophecy from Jeremiah 31 about the coming New Covenant now revealed in Christ: “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,…

Jesus didn’t restore the unbending standard of the law so that the we could reach it, but to show us that we couldn’t… When Jesus taught the people before He went to the cross, He said some pretty harsh and straightforward things regarding keeping the law, such as: “”If your right eye causes you to…

Here’s what Grace (from the inside) will do that the law (from the outside) never could1: First commandment: The law will command you “Thou shalt have NO other gods before Me,” but only Grace will give you a heart of worship for your King springing forth from a revelation of His amazing unmerited favor and…