Has Grace Been Abused?: Once in Grace, Always in Grace, Even If You Live in Dis-Grace?

By Dywen Lauren

Grace is an important aspect of Christian walk. Grace means that which is freely given by God, and it is received by faith without being earned or deserved. In this book, this truth is clearly explained along with how Paul the apostle warns us not to abuse the grace that is given to us by God.

Isaiah 11:2 describes the Spirit of God as the Spirit of the fear of God. The Holy Spirit is also called the Spirit of Grace in Hebrew 10:29. Where the Spirit of God is present, remember the fear of God is also present.

I believe this book can be used as a study guide and also to learn about Gods grace. It is a book that will inspire you to walk in the knowledge and grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Dr. Rajan Thiagarajah, Senior Pastor

Mighty Living Waters Life Fellowship, Australia

Many have distorted, perverted and actually destroyed the meaning of being under grace by interpreting it to mean a license for the flesh and sin.

The author of Has Grace Been Abused? has written this book to combat this insidious or dangerous teaching and interpretation of the Grace of God. Each and every chapter is filled with Scripture verses refuting this teaching and lifestyle, which is totally against the clear Word of God.

Rev. Dr. Margaret Seaward, Singapore

Has Grace Been Abused? is a good book and points the way to a life of holiness in a time when the wonderful 'Grace Message' - as in Paul's time - is being mis-represented by some who are "grace-abusers".

- Dr Kevin John Conner, former Senior Minister of CityLife Church Melbourne, Australia

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449730444

Dywen Lauren

Dywen Lauren has experienced great challenges and exhilarations in both the corporate secular world and in the church for the past 30 years. Before she became an author, she was one of the youngest Country’s Managing Directors of a Fortune Global 500 organization in Singapore. Dywen is also an author of two business management books about making a difference: The MAD Culture and MAD in Action.

Book preview

Endorsement

By Dr. Kevin John Conner

I have had the pleasure of reading Dywen Lauren’s book Has Grace Been Abused? It is a good book and points the way to a life of holiness in a time when the wonderful grace message—as in Paul’s times—is being misrepresented by some who are grace-abusers.

It is a pleasure to hear a voice in the wilderness pointing the way to a grace that leads to holiness of living. It clearly shows what "true grace" is, as the apostle Peter speaks of it (1Peter 5:12, KJV).

May God bless this book, and may it be a balancing word to what Biblical grace is in these last days.

Kevin John Conner

Melbourne, Australia

Dr. Kevin John Conner was the former Senior Minister of CityLife Church, Melbourne, Australia.Renowned author of sixty titles, his books are used in Bible colleges, theological seminaries (including Harvard Divinity School and Princeton Theological Seminary), and by countless ministers of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ worldwide. Dr. Kevin is the Honorary Apostolic Leadership Member of Ministers Fellowship International (MFI).

Has Grace Been Abused?

Once in Grace, always in Grace, even if you live in dis-Grace?

Dywen Lauren

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Contents

Endorsement

Foreword

From the Author

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Conclusion

About the Author

Copyright © 2012 Dywen Lauren

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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Amplified Bible.

Scripture quotations marked AMP are taken from the Amplified® Bible, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.

The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-3045-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-3044-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011919676

Printed in the United States of America

WestBow Press rev. date: 1/17/2012

All Praise, Honor, Glory,

and Power

to

My Beloved Bridegroom,

Who is

The Alpha and the Omega,

The First and the Last,

The Beginning and the End.

Thank you to …

Rev. Dr. Margaret Seaward, who graciously set aside time to read through this book’s manuscript and provided me with valuable insights into the Spirit of Holiness. Her life and testimony are great evidence of the awesome grace of God working mightily in believers who obey His law. I am profoundly grateful to Dr. Seaward for writing the Foreword of this book.

Dr. Kevin John Conner, who inspires me to remain steadfast in upholding and establishing the wholesome truth about the grace of God. I am extremely grateful to Dr. Kevin for allowing me to use his tagline Once in grace, always in grace even if I live in dis-grace? as a title for this book. His humility, strength, and awesome, reverential fear of the Lord are testimonies of the true grace of God working in his life. Thank you for being a great example to me of a good and faithful disciple of Christ.

Khim Ang, senior pastor of River of Life Sanctuary, Malaysia, for her valuable insights, suggestions, and loving encouragement on this book. Thank you for being my mother in the faith, who has guided me in the ways of God.

Dr. Rajan Thiagarajah, senior pastor of Mighty Living Waters Life Fellowship, Perth, Australia, for his in-depth and uncompromising teaching of the Word of God. Thank you for your great support and exhorting the children of God to love and obey God’s Word in its entirety.

"I will live with them and walk among them,

And I will be their God,

and they will be My people.

Therefore, come out from them

and be separate," says the Lord.

"Touch no unclean things and

I will receive you,

And you will be My sons and daughters,"

Says the Lord Almighty.

(2 Cor. 6:16–17 NIV)

Foreword

The grace of God is a wonderful thing. It is the unmerited or undeserved favor of God. There can be no salvation or right standing with God without the grace of God because all of us are sinners and condemned to die.

The grace of God is also the life and power of God, which is given to us in and through the finished work of Christ Jesus upon the cross of Calvary—whereby we are enabled by His life and ability to live and walk with God in the midst of a sin-cursed world.

Many have distorted, perverted, and actually destroyed the meaning of being under grace by interpreting it to mean a license for the flesh and sin.

The author of Has Grace Been Abused? has written this book to combat this insidious, dangerous teaching and interpretation of the grace of God. Each and every chapter is filled with Scripture verses refuting this teaching and lifestyle, which are totally against the clear Word of God.

Andrew Murray says that the one thing God asked of Adam in the garden of Eden was obedience. The one thing by which an individual can glorify God or enjoy His favor and blessing is obedience. The one cause that allowed the power of sin to enter into this world and ruin mankind was disobedience. Jesus came into this world to deliver us and set us free from the power of sin and to change us from children of disobedience to children of obedience.

Reading this book should forever clear any doubts or misconceptions concerning the grace of God. May God use this book and the teachings that are brought out in it to bring light and truth into your spirit.

Rev. Dr. Margaret Seaward

Singapore

Therefore, having these promises, beloved,

let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit,

perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

(2 Cor. 7:1, NJKV)

From the Author

To the body of Christ,

All who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and are loved by God the Father.

May the grace of our Savior, the peace of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you.

In all the epistles of the apostle Paul to the churches, he greeted them with these words: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. He would also end his epistles with similar words. Paul did not use these words as pleasantries to begin or end his epistles; rather, they were intended to convey and remind the churches of the merits and the intrinsic worth of the grace of God that had been bestowed upon them.

In Colossians 1:6, Paul said,

(That Gospel) is bearing fruit and still is growing ever since the day you first heard and came to know and understand the grace of God in truth (You came to know the grace or undeserved favor of God in reality, deeply and clearly and thoroughly, becoming accurately and intimately acquainted with it).

The apostle Paul explicitly spoke about knowing and understanding the grace of God in truth. It was a great concern to Paul that the inherent meaning, the importance, and the benefits of truly understanding and accurately applying the grace of God were understood by the believers. Paul had personal knowledge of the work of grace. He had encountered the awesome and transforming power of God’s gift of grace in his life.

As in the early churches, the subject of grace has come under much debate, questioning, and confusion. One of the sad reasons why this occurs is due to the fact that many do not take adequate effort to study and understand the whole context of His Word. We have the tendency to just pick a few Scriptures and expound on them without studying the preceding and subsequent chapters and doing cross-references. We neglected to learn from the noble Bereans, whom Paul, the apostle, commended in Acts 17:11:

Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. (NIV)

The Lord has put into my heart and spirit the urgency to impart His Words on this subject of grace, the true grace. We are living in perilous times, where deceptions and false doctrines are stealthily creeping into churches, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness (Jude 4). Many are being misled and have shipwrecked their faith (1 Tim. 1:19). Hence, it is my utmost sincere desire to impart to you what the Lord has taught and revealed to me about the spirit of grace.

Very often, we judge believers’ spiritual growth by their deeds—the measure or power of the gifts of the Holy Spirit manifesting through them. We look at the size of a ministry; we perceive the larger the ministry is, the more grace (power) of God is operating in the ministry. Some come to the conclusion that a church or a ministry is blessed with great wealth simply because the church or ministry is doing right and pleases God; hence, God blesses them with financial prosperity. However, our Lord says that we should not judge by mere appearances, but must discern and make a right judgment, a righteous judgment (John 7:24). Jesus Christ said we should judge by the fruit the believers produce - fruit of the Spirit and fruit of righteousness. And the apostle Paul said we should prove our repentance by our deeds; do works befitting repentance (Acts 26:20).

In 1 Peter 5:12, we read that Peter exhorted the believers to be steadfast and persevere in the true grace of God. To know, understand, and accept the true grace of God, we need the Word of God to reveal to us and teach us the truth about the spirit of grace. Hence, I am compelled to quote many Scriptures to support