I recently returned from the Free Grace Alliance Annual Conference in Dallas, Texas. The Free Grace Alliance's (FGA) main goal is to make the grace of the Gospel clearly understood in this growing age of evangelical confusion and chaos. At the conference, grace was everywhere! Everyone was kind and friendly and to be honest (for the first time in my life while being at a conference) they weren't fake! (Fake people piss me off, so that's why I bring that up.)I had the opportunity to sit under some great Bible scholars and grow from what I was being taught. I am appreciative that conviction came from their messages and that I could appreciate the paddling that I was getting! I am particularly thankful for both Dr. Charlie Bing and Dr. Charles Ryrie, both of whom I had the opportunity to meet at the conference. Dr. Ryrie gave a simple commission to the crowd to keep the Gospel clear and do not muddy it up with requirements, laws, unreasonable demands, and fleshly commitments. In his conversation with me (in the picture) he was very encouraging!
One person that I must thank the Lord for is Dr. Charlie Bing. His workbook, "Living the in the Family of Grace" helped to open my eyes to the grace message and changed my Christian life forever. I can not begin to explain how thankful I am for all that he has and is doing in order to help people understand the Grace of the Gospel!!!
Dr. Bing's workbook was the major player that resulted in the end of my self-reliant upkeep of my Christian walk and ultimately led to the destruction of my pride, guilt, insecurity, and law-imposed slavery that I felt from 5 years of bad Bible teaching!Resurgence (the church that I pastor) will have the privilege of hosting him for a conference on "Living the Grace Life" on October 17th-19th. I am excited for the people of Resurgence to learn and growing and hopefully be destroyed by the grace message.
Let me say in closing that it is so important that we keep the Gospel clear. We can not call on people to submit their unregenerate flesh to unreasonable demands that are simply not found in the Gospel. Asking someone to make Jesus "Lord of their life," asking them to "forsake all of their sins," telling someone that they must "be baptized," or "say a prayer," or "come down the aisle" are all impossible tasks to add to the Gospel message! The Gospel simply does not say that one must turn from their sins in order to be saved. The means is by faith! Believing that Christ died in our place and rose from the dead. The direction is only one way and that is from God to us. To add anything to it is to say that we are a "co-redeemer" in the process, and that simply can not be true, nor do I know of any evangelical that would claim that. The issue is sin and who is going to settle the account with God and His wrath.
Jesus did it all!!!!
Rest in this glorious fact and understand that we are "justified freely by His grace!"- Romans 3:24
