Dear Friend,

Many of the Christians whom we could call “grace challenged” will work hard and go to great lengths trying to please God. They remind me of the young man in Brazil who crawled fourteen miles on his knees to his girlfriend’s house to show her how much he loved her and how sorry he was for whatever he did to offend her. People lined the road to watch this man crawl to his girlfriend’s house, but when he arrived, she wasn’t even there.

Growing in grace is a crucial issue, because the Bible commands us: “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). Besides, the only alternative to grace in the Christian life is self-effort, which can be as futile as that young Brazilian’s long crawl to an empty house.

Growing in grace is a crucial issue.

We love to sing songs about God’s grace, but growing in grace each day is often another story. Why is this so hard to do? One reason is that grace is a foreign environment to us, much like a person moving to a foreign country and trying to get accustomed to the language and culture. The Bible says we have to grow in grace because it is not our normal orientation.

Because we were born in sin, no one had to show us how to act out our sinful nature. But we will spend the rest of our lives learning what it means to live by grace. The Bible never commands us, “Grow in the Law.” You will never read in God's Word, “Become better at keeping the rules.” It does command us to obey God, and growing in obedience is part of what it means to grow in grace. Grace and growth are two sides of the same coin.

My new CD series, The Magnificent Grace of God, has 12 messages straight out of God’s Word designed to give you both the wisdom and the fuel needed to walk daily in His grace. I want to offer this series to you this month with an added bonus; I also have a DVD teaching companion and booklet entitled The Grace of God, which will give you an enormous amount of knowledge regarding how God’s grace works in your daily life. With your gift of any amount to our ministry, I will send you the CD series, the DVD companion and the booklet with my thanks.

For His kingdom,
 

Why We Do What We Do

"My name is Tatiana, and I am 31 years old with three kids. Lately, I was just kind of doing my own thing day to day. I haven't really been on fire for the Lord.

For the past month or so, I have been listening to Christian radio a lot more often than I normally do. I just took my 13-year-old to Ontario, California so that we could go visit my sister, and on my way back, I was listening to your sermon called ‘Grace.’

I was on fire! I even welled up with tears. What really got to me was when you were talking about grace saying that it is the thing that is in us which allows us to say yes to the things that are trying to get us to say no and say no to the things that are trying to get us to say yes.

An hour prior to hearing this sermon, I was just talking to my friend about these things, and I couldn't believe that you were on the radio speaking of what was going through my mind. God knew that I needed to hear this. He spoke through you right to me, and I wanted you to know. I don't ever reach out like this, but I just had to let you know I could not have been more thankful!

Keep doing what you're doing!

It is something that you do all the time, but I thought I would show my gratitude because I was so thankful to hear it."

—Tatiana