I came across this on Facebook today. I have never heard of Don Keathley before and if you just watched he looks like a typical evangelical baptist preacher, but his message is far from the evangelical messages I have heard over my lifetime.

One of the questions he brings out is “Are you following and ministering out of obligation or….. ?” Well listen to see what the or is.

Lately I have been contemplating 2 Corinthians 5 and the idea where Paul says that we should look at no man after the flesh but the same way that God looks at each of us. This has really been making me think. Most of my life I have looked at people and in my mind consciously or unconsciously been labeling good bad, righteous unrighteous… well you get the idea. I also condemned myself relentlessly.  I was always in a state of shame. Never was I able to meet the standards set forth by the ten commandments and the law.  Romans 8:1 became alive to me over a year ago. The idea that there is now NO condemnation for those in Christ was mind blowing. Don Keathley also brings out John 8:15 ” You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one.” Jesus’s own words. He judges no one! If he also does only what the Father does…. Does that mean God no longer is in the judging business? I now can see others differently because I now can look at myself differently. I can now take myself out of the righteousness equation.  I always had assumed that “self” was a variable,  I was wrong. Grace, salvation, righteousness,  sanctification,  etc  are all free gifts that are free.  I have no participation in it beyond acceptence. I have no part of it, I am not necessary to the equation.

1 Corinthians 1:30
And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,

Christ became righteousness,  sanctification,  and redemption for us with out any needed participation on our part.

Ephesians 2
1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 
2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 
3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body[a] and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.[b] 
4 But[c] God, beingrich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 
5 evenwhen we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 
6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 
7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 
9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

This is kind of like Grace 101 but so much more. I encourage you to listen and or watch but I really received a lot.

Grace VS Radical Grace –
Pr. Don Keathley: