\u2026 and were by nature children of wrath, even as others. Eph.3:3<\/p>\n
Are you a believer? Are you what is called a saved person, a child of
\nGod? If so, how did that come about? Why did God save you? If your
\nanswer is, \u201cbecause I believed in Jesus,\u201d then you are over-qualified to
\nbe a candidate for the mercy of God and are therefore deceived and lost.
\nGod saves sinners who are \u201ceven as others\u201d and if you have distinguished
\nyourself from \u201cothers\u201d by some kind of faith that you produced, you have
\ndisqualified yourself from receiving the unmerited, free, sovereign,
\ndistinguishing grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
Our text and its context clearly show that when God, Who is rich in
\nmercy, displayed and dispensed that mercy upon men, that He did so when
\nthey were just like everybody else. If God saved me because I believed
\nin Jesus and did not save \u201cothers\u201d because they did not believe in
\nJesus, then the scriptures are meaningless and there is no such thing as
\npure grace.<\/p>\n
What does it mean to be \u201ceven as other?\u201d Read Ephesians 2. It means to
\nbe \u201cdead in trespasses and sins,\u201d in the \u201clusts of our flesh,\u201d and to be
\n\u201cby nature the children of wrath.\u201d You may say, \u201cWell I was a sinner and
\nGod saved me by grace, but I \u2018improved\u2019 upon that, grace whereas others
\ndid not.\u201d Then you are not \u201ceven as others\u201d; God has surely passed you
\nby and shall until you become so.<\/p>\n
This was the Pharisee\u2019s problem. Luke 18:11. The Pharisee stood and
\nprayed thus with himself, \u201cGod, I thank thee, that I am not as other men
\nare, extortionist, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.\u201d Real
\nsinners, such as the publican referred to here, make no such claim, but
\nonly cry out for mercy! If we have any objection to the title \u201ceven as
\nothers,\u201d it is only that surely there is no one quite as wretched as
\nourselves.<\/p>\n
What is your definition of grace? God saved me out of a world full of
\ndrowning worms just like me. If that\u2019s not grace, then I don\u2019t know what
\ngrace is. \u2014 Chris Cunningham<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u2026 and were by nature children of wrath, even as others. Eph.3:3 Are you a believer? Are you what is called a saved person, a child of God? If so, how did that come about? Why did God save you? If your answer is, \u201cbecause I believed in Jesus,\u201d then you are over-qualified to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,41,18,32,117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-chris-cunningham","category-the-eternal-covenant","category-grace","category-the-will","category-salvation-deliverance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4923"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4925,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4923\/revisions\/4925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}