Secret to being where God wants you

Listening to a really old audio cassette (Pastor Jordan joked about Alex Kurz’ son, still in high school, wearing tennis shoes to a wedding) on my way to Ohio over the Memorial Day weekend, the point was emphasized repeatedly that the real secret to successfully living the grace life is to know in the truest, fullest sense that God loves you (indeed, is crazy mad about you!) despite you not being worthy—despite you “not being able to keep the cheese on the cracker.”

In another message, Jordan says, “One of the great lessons you learn under grace is it’s okay to look like you lose. It’s okay to look weak. It’s in your weakness that His strength is made perfect, so it’s okay.

“I had a Brother comment to me just today, ‘You seem to have great peace about your physical problems.’ My question would be, ‘Why not?’ You have peace WITH God; you have the peace OF God. . .

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“Paul writes in Galatians 5: 24-26, ‘And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.’

“Provoking one another means envying and competing with one another; making yourself look good by making others look not so good. Putting yourself in front of them. You see someone else have a victory and a triumph that you . . . so desirous of having the praise that they’re getting.

“All that’s over there and Paul says we’re over here, living in this, not that over there. Religion, religious status, focuses over there and it wants self at the center, out in front, never satisfied with anything less than first place, always thinking about yourself and how it affects you and so on.

“You know, it dawned on me many moons ago—look at what Paul says in verse 24: ‘They that are Christ’s.’ If you belong to Jesus Christ, and you’re in Christ, don’t you already have first place in Christ? People are striving to get first place—you already got the first seat in Him! So it’s okay just to relax!

“Philippians 1:15 says, ‘Some indeed preach Christ of even of envy and strife.’ Notice he didn’t say error is preached? Here’s some people preaching Paul’s message; some out of sincerity, knowing it came from Christ through Paul, teaching it for the truth of God, but others doing it out of envy and strife.

“Some people took advantage of Paul’s imprisonment to gratify their own jealousy of him by pressing themselves to the front. The thinking was, ‘He’s in jail, he’s on the shelf now; we’ll do it!’ They’re making themselves the issue. They think, ‘We can have first place now!’ Paul says, ‘That doesn’t bother me; what matters is Christ is preached and truth is proclaimed.’ ”