The Greater Work

My dear Grace Chapel Partners,

Each month I'm send a chapter of the book I'm writing, GET UP! GOD IS NOT FINISHED WITH YOU!

This month is chapter 1. It is attached.

Bible verses quoted, unless otherwise stated, are from the New American Standard Bible (NASB). 

Also, this is a draft. If you have suggestions or helpful corrections please let me know. I'm looking for readability. Does it make sense? What is your opinion of what I say? Is this helpful to you? Would you recommend this book to someone else?

If I'm going to try and publish this book, I would like a good chance that it would have value to someone who would read it. Please help with your evaluation.

Thank you and blessings,

Steve Bragg

GET UP!

GOD IS NOT FINISHED WITH YOU!

Chapter 1

Introduction

The Greater Work

Apostle Paul' defense before King Agrippa

“To open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the

dominion of Satan to God,” (Acts 26:18a).

It is a traumatic experience to fall from ministry. In fact, I am convinced it is hell this side of the grave. It is a living death. Living in rebellion is a life lived separated from God in darkness, almost completely void of His goodness and blessing. However, God does not entirely abandon us in our rebellion.  By allowing us to reap the error of our ways and through the relentless ministry of the Holy Spirit, God continues to woo us toward repentance. In the process of getting up from my fall, I am coming to know God and His forgiveness, mercy, and grace intimately. Being renewed in my Lord is unquestionably heaven this side of the grave. I am learning to live an incomparable life of faith that is wrapped up in His love. Thank You Lord!

Only in recent years is the Church coming to accept that God can restore the life and the ministry of a fallen church leader. According to God’s Word those in leadership of His Church should be held to a higher standard. In his Word, the Lord states the spiritually mature qualifications and life standards for His leaders. Also, well stated in His Word are the honest observations of the lives of God’s leaders. In the lives of many of God’s leaders, He reveals the strengths and accomplishments and weaknesses and failures of their lives. Some of God’s leaders fell and never recovered from their fall. However, those who repented were restored. Their lives become powerful messages of the Great God we serve and who saves us. Amen!

When the Lord puts a life back together, He does it in a miraculous way that brings glory to His name. In the same way, Jesus heals the lame or blind, He heals our lives. By faith, He renews our lives and makes us whole. “He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake,” (Psalms 23:3).

The Lord’s Greater Work in Our Lives

The night before His death, Jesus told the Apostles, “He who believes in Me… greater works than these he will do,” (John 14:12). Jesus declared this after He had raised people from the dead. The greater works He is speaking of is the raising of the spiritually dead unto eternal life. The Apostle Paul said it like this, “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,” (Colossians 1:13).

Jesus raised the physical dead before He died on the cross and we, through the power of the Gospel after His death on the cross and resurrection, proclaim the message that raises the spiritually dead unto eternal life. By spiritually dead I mean those who are separated from God by sin. “Even when we were dead in our transgressions, he made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),” (Ephesians 2:5). Which is the greater work, to raise someone physically from the dead only to die again? Or is it a greater work to raise us from the dominion of darkness, eternal death, to the Kingdom of His Son, eternal life, never to die again? The greater works are salvation, and the resulting changed lives of salvation.

At the point of salvation we are changed from death to life. By grace through faith we are saved. The Apostle Paul writes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast,” (Ephesians 2:8, 9). However, salvation does not end there. Paul also adds in the next verse; “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them,” (Ephesians 2:10). Salvation is an ongoing, greater work. God is in a continuous process of changing the dark human soul from the inside out. “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him,” (Philippians 2:13 NLT).

Salvation Is an Ongoing Greater Work

The Apostle Paul’s life is an example of the greater works Jesus talked about in John 14:12, of a saved life that is changed forever. In Paul’s conversion, he not only meets the Lord on the road to Damascus, but he is baptized and commissioned within three days. Paul was entirely and utterly forgiven of his violent sins against God’s church, His people, and from that point on Paul served Jesus as one of His greatest evangelist. Paul’s life becomes a living testimony of the power of God’s salvation and its greater work to change lives. The Book of Acts reveals the unfolding of Paul’s life as a result of his salvation.  His new life brings glory to God in completing the task of delivering the message God had given him. The message God gave Paul is “to open their eyes, so they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. Then they will receive forgiveness for their sins and be given a place among God's people, who are set apart by faith in Me,” (Acts 26:18). God not only gives Paul this message, but empowers him to preach it. "So, having obtained help from God, I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, stating nothing but what the Prophets and Moses had said was going to take place,” (Acts 26:22). Paul's new life now has a greater purpose and meaning. After bringing Paul out of the darkness of persecuting the Church, Jesus, who is the risen Christ, brought him to the Light. The message that God bestowed to Paul was what God had done for him. Jesus opened Paul’s eyes and turned him from darkness to light. This message now had greater power because it was not only God’s message to the world, but Paul’s life became its living testimony. The work of saving and changing Paul’s life was to God’s glory. The work of God saving us and changing our lives brings glory to God.

Here is the testimony of God’s great work of salvation in Paul’s life. “And immediately he began preaching about Jesus in the synagogues, saying, "He is indeed the Son of God!" All who heard him were amazed. "Isn't this the same man who caused such devastation among Jesus' followers in Jerusalem?" they asked. "And didn't he come here to arrest them and take them in chains to the leading priests," (Acts 9:20, 21)? Everyone was amazed that the same man who came to imprison Christians was so quickly changed to become one of them, and a new leader of God’s church preaching the Good News. This was a shocking and striking event and testimony of God’s astounding power of forgiveness offered even to Paul the violent aggressor of God’s church.

In Paul’s defense to King Agrippa, Paul uses his changed life as evidence that the Lord Jesus was raised from the dead. First Paul explains to King Agrippa about his life before meeting the resurrected Lord Jesus. "Why is it considered incredible among you people if God does raise the dead? So then, I thought to myself that I had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And this is just what I did in Jerusalem; not only did I lock up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, but also when they were being put to death I cast my vote against them. And as I punished them often in all the synagogues, I tried to force them to blaspheme; and being furiously enraged at them, I kept pursuing them even to foreign cities,” (Acts 26:8-11). Then Paul presents his changed life as the result of meeting the resurrected Lord as proof of the resurrection.  "So, King Agrippa, I did not prove to be disobedient to the heavenly vision, but kept declaring both to those of Damascus first, and also at Jerusalem and then throughout all the region of Judea, and even to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance. For this reason, some Jews seized me in the temple and tried to put me to death. So, having obtained help from God, I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, stating nothing but what the Prophets and Moses said was going to take place; that the Christ was to suffer, and that by reason of His resurrection from the dead He would be the first to proclaim light both to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles," (Acts 26:19-23). Paul life immediately changes when he meets the resurrected Lord. He now knows Jesus and His resurrection are true. This results in Paul’s salvation. This is the power of the resurrection to save from our sins and change our lives.

Whether we are a new Christ follower or a mature Christ follower, God is in the process changing our lives. Our failures are not the end of our lives and ministries, but a continuous process of turning us from darkness to light. Each time He turns us to repentance and heals us, He deepens a better understanding of His love, mercy, and grace within our souls. This better understanding of God becomes a richer message of the Gospel and is evidenced by our lives. In the cutting away of each dark part of our lives, a greater Light prevails. God is continuing the greater work of salvation by changing us from the inside out. If you were and thief and steal no more, your life is a living testimony that God forgives and through His salvation come His continuous greater work of a changed life that bring testimony to God. If you have fallen from leadership in God’s Church and you have repented, then your life also brings testimony to the wondrous power of God to forgive and restore lives. Your life, like Paul’s, brings a remarkable testimony of God’s forgiveness, mercy, and grace. Like Paul’s testimony, your testimony as greater power as one forgiven, you are evidence of what you proclaim; God’s forgiveness; His salvation.

“I cried out to You, O LORD. I begged the Lord for mercy, saying,

"What will You gain if I die, if I sink into the grave? Can my dust praise You? Can it tell of Your faithfulness?

Hear me, LORD, and have mercy on me. Help me, O LORD."

You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy,

that I might sing praises to You and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give You thanks forever,” (Psalms 30:8-12 NLT)!