“Anytime you look at yourself, take Christ with you,” is a sample of the liberating statements about Living and Sharing God’s Grace soon to be released on the OIKEOS website. This seven-part package will be useful for personal study and group fellowships. The aim is to provide tools for faith-based, grace-filled, love-inspired environments where people can make deep connections with God and each other.

Opening with “Living and Sharing Grace,” explains the necessity of doing something more with grace than simply acknowledging its existence: The way to overcome negative conditions we find in this world, is to experience grace which comes from the center of God’s fullness. Because Jesus Christ fulfilled the requirements of the Old Testament Law, we are acquitted from a spiritual death sentence upon humanity since the time of Adam.

The perfect grace that Jesus Christ brought into this imperfect world releases us from the dictates of a morally corrupt generation. Jesus Christ resolved the captivity problem that issued from fear of death. God’s grace allows us to understand His sovereignty since He is above the troubles of this age.

Clothed and saturated in grace, we become fearless and “outward facing,” not introspective, looking for ways to collaborate with God. The mental strongholds that used to encase us are dissolved as we learn to stop rehearsing the habits of our old nature. Instead, we focus on spiritual strengths that carry us where we need to go. We are not afraid to change and walk in newness of life.

Grace takes us to a level where we shed our ideologies, the triggers that promote trust in self and condemnation of self. We submit to the accomplishments of the crucifixion and the resurrection and allow God to be our fortress. He guarantees our future. We look toward our hope of Christ’s return when we, too, will be changed never to die again.

A variety of helpful teaching topics follows, identifying how grace is exhibited in our daily lives and how we can extend it to others.

• “Learning and Embracing Grace” – After his resurrection, and before his ascension, Jesus Christ prepared his followers to embrace grace in their lifestyle. He came to them, not to condemn them for running away during his crucifixion, but to encourage them to spread the gospel about their brother, their contemporary, the Lord Jesus Christ. With the same open confidence displayed by the early disciples, we can “show and tell” the news of God’s grace.

• “Sharing the Light of Christ Where You Are” – During his earthly ministry, Jesus Christ demonstrated God’s desire to reconcile the common people, people who were meek to God’s grace and not deluded by their own accomplishments. The early Christians followed this approach by sharing meals and other everyday experiences with each other without emphasizing their personal pedigrees or social positions. They set a pattern, guided by grace, for us to follow centuries later.

• “Prayer” – Prayer is like a highway to God and by His grace we have complete access to talk to Him and share our thoughts. We need to steer those thoughts to thankfulness and praise so that we do not inventory our needs as though we are filling out a shopping list. Through prayer, we can invoke His wisdom into our daily lives so that we are prepared to live victoriously even in an unscrupulous culture.

• “Mutual Respect” – God’s standard for our behavior is to express unbiased love and acceptance for one another based on the accomplishments of one man, Jesus Christ, and not our own achievements. It is described in Philippians 2:2 AMP: “make my joy complete by being of the same mind, having the same love [toward one another], knit together in spirit, intent on one purpose [and living a life that reflects your faith and spreads the gospel—the good news regarding salvation through faith in Christ]. 

• “Growing in Grace” – Jesus Christ came to free us from a performance-based way of life. Even before his ministry began, he had this confirmation from God, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” As we grow in grace, we grow in humility. Grace is the tipping point where we learn to lay aside our own works and become more aware of what God already has done in Christ Jesus. We cease to hold ourselves hostage for all the things we should or should not have done.

• “Planting and Watering with Grace” – Sharing God’s grace is beneficial for ourselves and others. Without sharing grace, its vitality begins to deteriorate. The Word of God has intrinsic power, and it needs to be shared with people so their lives can be transformed. With God, planting and watering His Word in the hearts of others can be done by first laying the foundation of Christ for each person in each generation. This foundation of truth needs to be laid in our hearts so that we know our past is resolved and our future is guaranteed. We can live spiritually free as did the Apostle Paul who, even in the last years of his life, “…continued to proclaim to all the truths of God’s kingdom, teaching them about the Lord Jesus, the Anointed One [Christ], speaking triumphantly and without any restriction.” Acts 28:31 TPT