This is Joy Ebeledike. Thanks for joining today’s Episode of Joy Ebeledike’s journal.
In the last Episode we saw that Faith is a positive response to the Word of God and that
the only part we have to play in our Covenant relationship with God is to respond
positively to what He has provided by His grace. For our third topic on our theme on
Grace and Faith, we shall consider the topic-Living in the Balance of Grace and Faith.
A lot of people believe and act out the belief that having obtained salvation by grace,
they have to exercise faith in their own efforts to keep it. People believe they have to
pray, read the bible, go to Church, pay their tithes and so on to earn a place in Heaven
and to receive God’s blessings. But like we explained in Episode 38, God has provided
for our salvation as well as everything you and I need to live our lives on earth. He
provided it all in the creation of the world and through the accomplished works of Christ.
So we do not need to live by a set of rules or exercise faith in our own works of flesh.
We do not need to impress God to be blessed. We do not need to pray hard and long in
order to convince God to move or change His position. God has declared how much He
loves us in His Word, but many times, people pray as if He is mean, hard hearted and
needs to be petitioned desperately in order to change His mind and respond to us. But
the truth is that God does not need to move or change His position because He has
already anticipated and provided everything we would ever need. And this is an act of
His love for us. I know that those of us that like to start prayer chains; or fast for 21 days
or wake up at midnight to pray for God to change His mind and do something will not
like this but I am stating the Word of God.
John 19:28 states –After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished that
the scripture might be fulfilled said-I thirst. Two verses later in verse 30, Jesus uttered
the words-It is finished. We need to renew our minds about God’s provisions. You need
to shift your mindset. God has provided everything you need to live victoriously. Let’s
just look at a few more scriptures.
Ephesians 1:3, declares that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in
heavenly places. 2 Peter 2: 24 declares-by His stripes you were healed. Colossians
1:13 declares that He rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and brought us into the
kingdom of His son. Romans 8:17 declares that we are joint heirs with Christ. 1 Peter
2:9 says we are a chosen people and a royal priesthood to proclaim the virtues of Him
who called us out of darkness. All these scriptures and many more are written in the
past and present tense. All these blessings have been completed and provided by God.
So If you are sick and you wake up at midnight for instance and start praying and
begging God to heal you because you have fasted for 21 days and because you have
not missed any prayer meeting in Church, you are not responding to the finished works
of Christ and the Grace of God. You are exercising faith in your own works.

Am I discouraging you from fasting; from diligently attending prayer meetings or from
praying and studying the word of God? Off course not! You have certainly heard me
emphasizing the need to study the word of God. However fasting, praying, studying the
word of God are activities you undertake to grow your relationship with God and to build
up your faith. These activities are for your own good. You desire to mature spiritually
because you love God and appreciate His sacrifice for you. And you fast, pray and
study the bible because you desire to grow spiritually. So when you fast, pray and study
the Bible you are doing yourself a favour. You are not doing God a favour. These
activities in themselves are not conditions for God’s blessings but will build up your faith
and love for God so that you can respond to God’s word positively. You will not move
God or impress Him because you fasted or started a prayer chain. You will only receive
what God has provided for you by believing His Word and responding in faith.
So we should not exercise our faith with the intention of moving God. We should
exercise our faith to appropriate what God has already provided for us. We are the ones
who need to take action in order to receive what God has provided.
Now when we say that God has provided everything for us and that receiving from God
depends on what Christ has done for us, some people begin to take that to the extreme.
They argue that it means we do not need to do anything at all because we will surely
receive all that Jesus Christ has accomplished for us. These are the proponents of Che
sera sera; whatever will be will be. God has done everything. Just relax and everything
will fall into place.
On the other extreme we have those who struggle and work hard to impress God to
answer them and bless them by their good works. These ones ignore the
accomplishments of Jesus Christ on the Cross and the Grace of God. They ignore
God’s declarations of the things He has provided for us and keep pleading with Him to
bless them according to their own self righteousness and good works.
But God’s expectation is that we should avoid both extremes and live in the balance of
Grace and Faith. The Grace of God is available to everyone. But the only people who
walk in God’s provisions are those who respond to it by faith.
Those who believe that we do not have a part to play and that whatever will be will be
will not possess what God has provided for us because they do not respond to His
provisions in faith. And those who ignore the accomplished works of Christ and focus on
their own works and overzealousness will also not possess what God has provided for
us because they have rejected it.
How then do we achieve a balance of Grace and faith.
As Ephesians 2:8 states- it is by grace you have been saved, through faith. And
Hebrews 4:2 states….But the word which they heard did not profit them, not being
mixed with faith.

The Israelites failed to enter the promised land because they did not mix God’s word
with faith.
To achieve a balance of Grace and faith, we have to acknowledge that God has done
what His Word says He has done. We have to believe that God has done what He said
He has done. We have to be convinced and remain convinced that God has done what
He said He has done. We have to rest on Christ’s accomplished works.
How do you know that you are resting on Christ’s accomplished works? Hebrews 4:10
states-For anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works. When you start
resting on Christ’s accomplished works, you would stop placing your faith on your own
works. You would stop placing your faith on 21 days fasting or midnight prayers. You
would start placing your faith on what Christ has done for you and stop asking God to
change His position. If you are still praying and struggling to make God to change His
mind, you are not resting on Jesus’ accomplished works.
Our own part of the covenant relationship between us and God is to rest on Christ’s
accomplishments. God knows that it takes effort to rest in Christ’s accomplishments so
He tells us in Hebrews 4;11 to labour to rest in Christ’s accomplishments. So we have to
labour to keep our faith alive. We labour to keep trusting and relying on the word of God
in spite of the circumstance. We labour to defend what God has done; not to get God to
do something. We labour to defend and keep our healing not to be healed.
Those who believe that we don’t need to do anything because what will be will be are so
far from the truth, because it takes a lot of effort to labour to keep our faith alive. To
keep faith alive we must keep studying the bible; stay focused and refuse to be
distracted in order to remain fully persuaded of the Word of God.
As we saw in Episode 38, Abraham did not waver at the promise of God. He chose to
believe the word rather than the circumstance. He was fully persuaded. We live in the
balance of Grace and Faith when we are fully persuaded and remain convinced like
Abraham, even as time passes, that God has done what He said He has done. We live
in the balance of Grace and faith by believing and responding in faith to the Word of
God. We live in the balance of Grace and Faith by mixing the Word of God with our
faith. It takes effort to keep our faith alive and this is the labour that God expects from
us.
Father we pray that you help us internalize your word that we are saved by your grace
through our faith and not by our works. Help us further to labour to mix the word we
have heard today with faith so that we can remain fully persuaded of the truth of the
Word of God no matter what the circumstances are saying.