You did not choose when to be born or whom your parents would be. That choice was made for you by Yehovah. Even though you did not choose to be born, your status as a child of your parents earns you the right to their affection, love, care, and protection. It also comes with responsibilities. You have to obey by their rules and their morals if you want to continue to receive their love, care, and protection. Your status as your parent’s biological child will never change, but your access to the benefits of being their child can change if you do not live up their morals and rules.
You did choose who you wanted to marry, but you had to do something to get them to accept you as their spouse. What you did back then earned you the right to become their spouse. Your status as their spouse earns you the right to your spouse’s affection, love, care, respect. It also comes with a responsibility; you have to keep on proving your love, respect, faithfulness, and affection for your spouse. If you do not do your part in the marriage, you will soon lose the right to your spouse’s affection, love, care, respect, and faithfulness.
You did decide on to what job you wanted to apply for. Because of what you have done in the past in your line of work, and because of your ability to do well on the interview, you got the job you wanted. Now you are responsible for keeping performing well on your job, meeting your employer’s expectations. If you fail at this responsibility, you will soon find yourself out of a job having lost all the privileges.
The three most important relationships we have daily are all built on what we can do to earn something in return. If we do not do our part, we will not get what we need in return from that relationship. We accept this as being the regular part of human existence; this is how we are used to living our lives if we do something we get something in return. If we dont something, we dont get anything in return.
When someone gets saved, we tell them they can’t do anything to get anything from God. Salvation is by grace through faith alone, and grace is unmerited favor. So if they try to do anything to earn Gods acceptance and grace, they become legalistic. Then we warn them if they become legalistic, they will make Christ of no effect.
When they go on in life as Christians, and they need healing, provision or Gods general help in life, they believe it is enough to pray and have a passive faith believing Jesus will give them grace and intervene on their behalf.
If what we are telling them is true and Biblical, we should expect to see an active church living the Acts of the Apostles. We should expect to see the dead raised, the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, and demons cast out in the name of Jesus. Is the western church living the Acts of the Apostle? The honest answer is no, the church of the west is divided into 40 000 + different denominations all claiming to have the truth unable to agree with each other. We do not see any evidence of an active, alive church today, so it is obvious something is wrong somewhere, and it can not be the Bible.
When you got saved, did you do something to earn salvation? Someone told you Jesus, the Son of God died for your sins, so you chose to repent and believe that is true. Because you repented and decided to put your faith and your trust in Jesus, you earned the right to salvation. Had you not repented and believed in Jesus, you would not have the right to salvation. You did not do something to earn Gods offer of salvation. But when He offered it to you, you did act on that offer and what you did earned you the right to salvation.
When you got saved, did you do something to earn salvation? No, you did not do something to earn Gods offer of salvation. That is a gift given to every human being on this earth (John 3:16). But because you accepted that gift, it earned you the right to salvation. So you did not do anything to earn the gift, but you did earn the result of the gift by what you did.
From your own salvation experience, it is obvious you are saved by merited grace. It was merited grace because you did something to earn the result of the gift. What you did was acceptance of the gift, and your choice to act on the conditions of it which are faith and repentance.
In the book of Matthew, Yeshua (Jesus) gives us a wonderful promise. He says our Father in heaven knows our needs before we even know what they are, and He is ready to make sure our needs are met. If you believe grace is always unmerited favor, you would usually skip over the rest of the verse in Matt 6:25-34 and try to claim that promise because of your faith in Jesus. But the truth is that the verse continues on to say “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.” Did you catch what Yeshua just said? He said that if you want your heavenly Father to meet your needs, you have to do something first. You have to act and live righteously to have your needs met. This does not sound to much like grace being unmerited favor.
In the book of 1.John, we read how to be one with Yeshua. If we live our lives as He lived His life, we will be one with Him. So if you want to be united with Christ, you have to do something, and that something is to make sure you live as He lived. This does not sound to much like grace being unmerited favor.
In the book of James, we read a description of how to be saved and what saving faith looks like. It says in James 2:10-26 if we are saved we have to show our salvation in what we do. If salvation is by grace, through faith, it is evident grace is not unmerited favor, according to James 2:10-26.
In the Gospel of John, we find the most famous verse in the entire Bible “for so God loved the world that He gave His one and only Son so that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” If you are one of them who believes grace is unmerited favor, you will stop reading right there in John 3:16. But if you read the entire chapter of John 3, you will soon see John 3:16 comes with a condition; you have to do something to get eternal life. If we read from John 3:16-3:20 it is obvious those who believe show their faith in deeds and works done in righteousness. So if salvation is by grace through faith is evident from John 3, grace is merited favor.
So to avoid being misunderstood, let me repeat one crucial thing. We can not and did not do anything to deserve the gift of salvation. The cross is 100% unmerited gift. How do we know this is unmerited? Because of the Torah (the written law of Moses). When we broke Gods law (the Torah), we did it with intent. Nobody forced us to do it, so we are 100% responsible for our actions, and therefore Yehovah is justified in sending everyone to hell for their sin.
The Torah says someone who breaks Gods law with intent commits spiritual adultery against Yehovah. When we are unfaithful to Yehovah, the Torah states in the book of Jeremiah and the book of Romans; He divorces Himself from us. If we want to come back to Him, His law in Numbers 5 says it is illegal for Him to take us back as His people. The book of Romans says the only way for Yehovah to be legally able to accept us again as His people, would be if He and we died together a physical death, was buried together and risen together to a new life. This is what happened on the cross, and now everyone everywhere can by faith accept this gift and act on it so they can be saved.
We did not deserve the cross; we could not do anything to earn it; the cross is unmerited grace.
What happens after we accept the gift is merited and conditional. It all depends on our willingness to act on our faith in the cross and choose to remain obedient to righteousness. The Bible defines righteousness as Torah obedience, so we see now how the Bible says grace is merited favor depended upon our level of Torah obedience.
To make it easier to understand this, we can compare it to being born. You did not do anything to be born; you did not decide when, where, and to who you would be born. Therefore we can say that being born is unmerited grace. But when you are already born, you become dependent on merited grace, for as long as you do something, it earns you the right to get something in every relationship for the rest of your life.
Now that you have been born again as a Christian, the Bible says in the book of Exodus, Gospel of John, Gospel of Matthew and book of John you are supposed to live by merited grace. Whatever you need in this life is already given to you in the cross, but it will not be released to you until you deserve it and earn it through obedience to the written Torah.
This is the total opposite of what is being preached in most churches today, so how do we know this view on grace as merited favor is Biblical? Because the Bible says so in John 3, the book of James and 1.John. We do not deserve the cross. The cross is unmerited favor. The cross has everything we need for this life, and it is the guarantee that all our needs will be met. But for this to become a reality in our lives, we have to accept the gift of the cross. Acceptance is something we do on our part by acting on our faith in the cross and choosing to repent from living a lawless life to living a law-abiding life which makes us righteous. A righteous life lived in obedience to the written Torah is the key that unlocks the grace we need to have our needs met.
What the Bible wants us to know is this, Torah is the key that unlocks the grace you need for your life. If you obey Torah, your merits will release the grace you need for everyday life and living.
But because most Christians today believe the Torah does not apply to them, they have lost access to pure grace in their lives. This is why the church today is so powerless, and why most Christians struggle in their everyday life and living.
Do we deserve anything from Yehovah? Do you deserve anything from Him?
As a Christian, your default answer is no because you have been told so many times of the dangers of falling from grace or making Christ of no effect. I have just shown you that what you have been told is wrong; it is not supported at all in the Bible. The Bible says you do not deserve the cross; the cross is unmerited favor. To be able to unlock the gift of the cross and release the grace that flows from it, you have to be Torah obedient. The gift of the cross is unmerited favor, but the grace you need for this life and everything in is merited and will always be merited. Torah obedience is what releases the so important grace we can’t live without into your life.
Let me ask you again the same question: Do you deserve anything from God? If you do not obey the Torah, the Bible says in the book of Deuteronomy and the Gospel of John and Matthew you dont deserve anything from Him. It even says in the book of James, and the Gospel of Matthew, a lack of Torah obedience shows you your faith is dead and unable to save you. So you do not even deserve heaven if you do not obey the Torah. Why? Because the book of James says, true saving faith will show itself in obedience to the Torah. A lack of obedience is lawlessness, and we read in the Gospel of Matthew how Yeshua denies knowing those who live lawless lives.
Do you feel as if God meets your needs? Are you living the carfree life Yeshua talks about in the Gospel of Matthew, always assured Yehovah working on your behalf giving you what you need at every moment? If the answer is no, it is because of your lack of Torah obedience.
Yeshua says it best Himself in the Gospel of Matthew if we obey the Torah, we are righteous. If we are righteous, Yehovah promises to meet all our needs whatever they might be. In the book of Psalms, He even says He will give us the desires of our hearts if we obey the Torah.
So let’s talk about money and health for a moment, the two things in life that affect our lives the most. If we dont have any money or our health is poor, it changes everything we say and do. A lack of money and poor health makes us worried and depressed. Do you feel as if Yeshua hears your prayers for healing and provision? Or is it more like He sometimes hears them but not all the time? Have you ever wondered why? The Bible says He hears the prayers of the righteous, in the Gospel of Matthew He even says and promises Yehovah will meet our needs. So why this discrepancy between what is happening to you and what the Bible promises?
Why should Yeshua heal you and provide for you? Your church/pastor/evangelist/denomination has probably told you He will do these things because you are the righteousness of Christ Jesus. They might have said something like this to you: You become the righteousness of Christ Jesus if you accept Him into your heart and make Him your Lord and Savior. Now Yehovah (God the Father) is obligated to hear and answer your prayers and meet your needs. Why is He obligated? Because now you are saved, in Christ, a new creation, born again, on your way to heaven.
Have you ever checked in your Bible to see if this is true? The Bible says in the book Galatians and the Gospel of John, we should always consider the fruit of something. So what are the fruits of what you believe? Do you see fruits of healing, prosperity? Or are you seeing a bad harvest, a lack of answered prayer? The fact that you are sick and in need shows you the truth behind what your pastor told you.
If you, on the other hand, go by what the Bible says you are going to see changes in your life. As we have learned today, the Bible says grace is always merited favor. The Bible is no different from any other relationship here on earth if we do something for God He will do something for us. If we do not do anything for God, He will not do anything for us.
So what do you need Him to do in your life today? Is it money? Healing? Wisdom? Whatever your need might be, the Bible says in the book of Joshua, the book of James, the book of 1. John and the Gospels of John and Matthew that if you will make the Torah the object of your faith Yehovah guarantees He will give you what you need.
What does that mean “object of my faith”? Allow me to use an analogy to explain this. If you love someone, they will always be on your mind. Your number 1 priority will be to make them happy and feel loved by you. Why? Because you love them and your love for them motivates you to want to see them happy and feel loved by you. In the Gospel of John, Yeshua says those who love Me will obey Me and keep My Torah. In the book of Joshua He (Yeshua) says the same thing to Joshua, if you focus on obeying Me everything you do will succeed, and I will be with you.
Do you love Yeshua (Jesus)? Of course, you love Him, considering what He did for you at the cross. If you truly love Him, you will want to make sure He knows that and that He feels loved by you. How do you make Him feel loved by you? According to the Gospel of John by obeying His Torah.
So you see loving Yeshua is no different from any other love relationship here on earth. We love someone when we make it our priority to do to them what makes them feel loved, and in the case of Yeshua, it is His Torah. So what does it mean to have the Torah as “my object of faith”? It means that you make it your priority to obey His Torah as evidence of your love for Him. If you do obey His Torah (the written law of Moses) as evidence of your love for Him, the Bible says in the book of Deuteronomy, Exodus, the Gospel of John and Matthew, you have earned your healing, your deliverance, your prosperity and the right to have even the desires of your heart met.
Let us stop for a moment and consider one important issue here. If the Bible says the Torah is the key to grace, the Torah is the way we show Yeshua our love, the Torah is the key to having your needs met, and the Torah is the evidence of our salvation, it makes you wonder why the church says the Torah is obsolete and done away with. But the answer to this question is easy; the answer is the devil.
In the Gospels, we read about Yeshua’s temptation in the desert. It is undeniable how the devil knows the Bible, considering how he quotes scriptures to Yeshua out of context. The devil knows that the Torah is the key we need as Yehovah’s redeemed children. He knows Rev 12:11, 14:12 says the one who obeys Torah as a result of their faith in the cross will overcome even the devil himself. So by convincing the church, the Torah is obsolete, he has managed to take away our most important weapon.
Do not allow yourself to be fooled anymore by the devil and reclaim your salvation, the grace you need for this life by obeying Torah.
Do you deserve anything from Yehovah? Do you deserve to be healed? Do you deserve to be set free from debt? Do you deserve the money to pay your bills? Do you deserve to have the desires of your heart met?
The Bible says YES but ONLY if you obey Torah and ONLY Torah.
Do you want to inherit eternal life and heaven when you die?
The Bible says you will inherit eternal life and heaven IF you obey the Torah.
So why are you not obeying Torah right now by celebrating Shabbat today?
Yehovah bless you
Apostle Ernie