I have just about seen enough articles, teaching albums, etc. advertised under titles like “Greasy Grace”, “Crazy Grace”, or “Grace Gone Wild”. While I am sure that just about everything can be abused, even grace because the Bible says so. These three titles that warn against the grace message don’t have a clue and often have little or no knowledge of what the message is. Instead they build up a phantom and an attack that their imagination has created. It goes something like this: “Those who preach a radical message of God’s grace are people looking for a low commitment, a low level Christian life where anything goes because sin is tolerated (after all, Jesus paid for them).” Often writers are connecting the message of grace with general moral decay in the church and in the world. I used to have this opinion of grace teaching myself only seven or eight years ago. I had never really heard the message but just assumed that people who would preach that all sin, past, present and future had been paid for by Jesus, couldn’t be doing anything good with their sermons, in fact they must be something negative (creating a license to sin).

I remember when I used to enjoy being called a fundamentalist or call myself a fundamentalist. That was back when fundamentalism meant, “Clinging to unchanging truths.” In that sense, I am still a fundamentalist, clinging to the unchanging reality of what Jesus has done through His death and resurrection and what He is doing in His present day ministry as our exalted King.

How are we saved, and what is the means of our salvation? Amazingly, much confusion exists among evangelical and charismatic Christians on this topic. A recent issue of Christianity Today heralded an increased acceptance of Calvinism, which prompted me to read a couple of books on this subject. Well, now I am even more convinced of the need to address the subject of salvation.

Christmas has started a bit different for RoxAnne and I. It has been an exciting year! I enjoy blogging and I sure enjoy your responses. I am writing from Timika, in the province of Papua, Indonesia. Last night we finished a Gospel Festival; and at the end of it I was swarmed by Muslims. They were hugging me, squeezing me, wanting to get close… it was awesome. I know they were not praising me; I was only basking in the overflow, so to speak, of what Jesus had done for them. They were only grateful to me because I had brought them a witness of the LIGHT. Now it is the day after and I am thinking back.