Grace Is Unmerited Favor – by Joseph A. Cortes

Ephesians 2:8 reads. “For by grace,” [for by unmerited favor] “are ye saved…”

“Are you saying grace is it?”

Yes. I know some of the new funky preaching that is going on out there differs with that, but you know, they have a right to be wrong.

“For by grace are ye saved…” It doesn’t say anything else, including “by faith.” See, I don’t necessarily believe in what is preached concerning “saving faith.” Faith never saves you. You can have faith in just about anything. Does that mean you are going to be saved?

“Well, it’s faith in God.”

Then be more specific than that, because God is not doing the saving unless it is through His son, Jesus Christ. There are a lot of definitions for God out there. And I know this is going to aggravate many people, but it says—and not just this verse—for by grace are ye saved through faith. Well, how do you even get faith to be saved by grace?

Faith, and I have said it many times, you have pistis and the pisteuo level (of faith) in the Greek. Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God. And in hearing and hearing the word of God, you will either reject it or you will be persuaded into believing, which takes you to the next level of faith, the pisteuo level of faith, where you have total trust and confidence in what the son of God has said about Himself, because “for by grace are ye saved through faith”—through faith in who? Jesus Christ. “And that not of yourselves,” —meaning anything you think you must do to become saved.“It is the gift of God.” Grace is the gift of God, “not of works lest any man should boast.” And I have said many times, you can’t save yourself by works.

For Example. Many of you were told that if you didn’t give (offerings) you were going to hell. I am sorry, but that is wrong teaching. That is flat out wrong. You can’t find it anywhere in Scripture. You can manipulate Scripture to make it sound that way, but it isn’t in the Scripture. That is a works-based salvation, a different type of works. You give because you are obedient to Christ command to lay your treasures up in heaven. And by not doing that, you are cheating yourselves and you are robbing God of the opportunity, Christ Himself, to reward you, which He’s waiting to do. So, it serves a purpose here, obviously, so others can hear the rightly divided word of God, but it serves even a greater purpose there.  I think I made that clear in the Where Is Your Heart? series. There is nothing you can do, because if you could give your way to heaven, then who needs Jesus? If you could give your way to heaven, why did He die on the cross? If you can give your way to heaven, why did He allow himself to be tortured, bruised, and battered? If you could give your way to heaven, why did He leave glory to come to a decaying sinful world? And that is just one works-based salvation message. There are others.

I have paid the price, this ministry has paid the price, because I have set you free and some Christian freeloaders out there—listen, I know you don’t like to hear that, but this isn’t a massage parlor ministry. This is telling you exactly the way it is. See, receiving eternal life and where you spend your destiny is my biggest concern. Whether you receive rewards in heaven or not, or whether you receive rewards, period, in heaven is my concern and that is where my passions lie—bringing to you what God cares about. I’m not a man pleaser. I have messages all the time saying they are so glad to have found this ministry, because there aren’t many out there teaching the way I am teaching. The pastors don’t dare go against the denominational view point and doctrines they must follow. They don’t dare confront their congregations. They are afraid the people will go somewhere else, because churches are a dime a dozen. They don’t care about their souls; they care about filling a seat and receiving an income from the possible seat filler. God has set me free from that, but He hasn’t set me free from laying out your responsibilities—the ones that God has laid out. So, you shouldn’t use what I’m teaching to somehow escape those responsibilities by becoming a freeloader—which some of you do.

Most of Christianity has the wrong idea. And you hear this a lot: if a saved person does this, or if they don’t do that, then they must be a false convert. We have a lot of false teachings to thank for this mindset. They deceive so many. If those converts haven’t changed and lived the same type of life they do, or if they didn’t have the same type of conversion they did, or, if they refuse to repent of their sins….

If anyone was serious about the Bible and what it truly has to say about repenting, they would know it has nothing to do with repent the way it’s taught. The Greek word clearly states you have a change of mind about what Christ has done and what He said: I am the way, I am the only one who provides total truth, and through Me you receive eternal life. That is what he asked us to do. That is the starting point. He doesn’t want to hear your list of sins. He wants to hear, “I have sinned Lord, but now I trust that you will wipe out those sins. All I have to do is start trusting in you, putting my total confidence in what you did was sufficient, and anything that I can do falls way short of meeting the standard that God has placed.”

These people who judge other’s salvation believe that if you aren’t going to do what they tell you to do, and you aren’t going to live the way they tell you to live, then you must be a false convert. Well, they are full of something, which I can’t express to you because I might have children listening and I won’t go that far. But I think you adults know exactly what I mean. They are the ones that are false converts, because they don’t fully understand what God’s Word says here, that salvation is by God’s free grace; it is a free gift, through faith alone, in Christ alone. That is what it is saying here in Ephesians 2:8-9.

So, you must ask the question: Who are the false converts? We who believe what I have been preaching in this series, or the other side? If you believe you can be saved by your works or any human effort—you’re lost. I’ve said it enough; I think you get that point. See, a false conversion in the Scriptures is a conversion that was not done by Christ alone. When anyone tries to work, or, pridefully in their arrogant way work their way to heaven, or add work to faith, it will always result in a false conversion.

So, what is a genuine conversion? I guess the best way of saying it is when one trusts in the grace of God to save them, and puts their faith alone, once again, in Christ. Period. Nothing is added. Zero. Nada. Understanding what happened; He died, was buried, and rose again. He paid the penalty that we deserved, He paid it all for all, and the way to receive that free gift is to trust and have confidence in what He did. It’s then that you start living your life for Jesus and become a follower of Christ. He will direct your path and He will start molding you in to the being He wants you to be for His purposes. I have been saying it for a long time now, put your focus on Jesus because it’s all about Him.

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In 2 Corinthians 9:7 it reads, “God loveth a cheerful giver.” The Greek word for cheerful is Hilaros which means when someone is prompt to do something, they are ready in mind, with a joyful heart. In the Septuagint it also means to cause to shine. Today I am looking for Hilaros Givers who are ready and full of joy for the opportunity to cause others to shine by hearing, learning, and growing in God’s Word.

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