March 31, 2020March 31, 2020
by in Focus on Christ E-Books

GRACE

WRITTEN BY JACO VAN AS

Click here to download this E-Book

Opening

A few years ago, the Holy Spirit showed me that I was going to talk about racism, discrimination and in general about grace. I then started to read the Bible again from Genesis all the way to Revelation, but this time with a focus on finding scripture about race. I was surprised at the amount of scripture I found touching on the issue of racism and also discrimination.

I decided to also look outside of the Bible, digging into the history books and I was indeed surprised at what I found. A few months later I decided to host a conference on race, called Black and White, but the enemy was clearly not happy with me wanting to discuss this issue and the first planned conference never happened due to me getting sick. A year later I tried again to plan this conference, and again something big happened that forced me to not go ahead with it.

It was clear that satan did not want this conference to happen and I knew what the Holy Spirit showed me and I was certainly not going to be stopped. I did however decide to not to do the conference at that stage, but another year on, the Lord made it clear that it was time. I then started to plan the conference again and this time everything fell into place and even though there were still attacks on my life, the conference happened and it was a big success. The conference was presented in Cape Town and a few months later also in Pretoria.

A few weeks before the Pretoria conference I got sick again, this time much worse than the first time around and I was in and out of hospital and doctors, but nobody could figure out what was wrong. One of the symptoms I had was the fact that I struggled to breath. Some days it was so bad that I accepted that my time here on earth came to an end. I really could not breath at times, making it nearly impossible to speak. All this happening a few weeks before my conference on race in Pretoria.

It really wasn’t easy to prepare for a conference when you this sick, not to even mention the fact that I needed to go and stand in front of a crowd for an hour, knowing I cannot even breath. At times, I felt like cancelling the conference, but I knew the enemy was trying to stop me from doing what Jesus wanted me to do. I did however decide to work on a plan B, should I not be able to talk or leave this earth before the conference.

One night I had a dream, well it felt more like a vision, and all I saw was the words John 11. It felt like the dream lasted for hours. The following morning, I read the entire John 11, which is the story of Lazarus, but even though I knew that the Lord wanted to show me something, I just could not figure it out and it just confused me, but it did however bring me comfort. I then got a message later in the day from my sister, giving me John 11:4, containing these words: “This sickness will not end in death”.

Even though I had no idea what was wrong with me, and clearly also not the doctors and specialists, I knew that I was going to be fine. The morning of the conference my breathing were fine and I could do my presentation on grace and race and the conference was a success. Praise Jesus! My health just got better and better from there onwards. Praise Jesus!

I decided to convert my presentation of the conference into an e-book so that more people can be reached, so that more people can get an insight into the truth about race, which is why I am sharing it with you today. No matter what happens, satan will not stop this e-book from being written and will not stop it from being read. Now that you have a better idea how this e-book came to be, let me share my thoughts about race with you.

Exercise

We all struggle with forgiveness in our lives, may it be things people have done to us or us who did things to others. I now want you to take a piece of paper, writing down the names of people who did things to you that you struggle with to forgive and then on the other side of the paper, write down the names of people you have done wrong to and have not asked forgiveness for it.

Meaning of the word grace

  • Good will – having good grace to apologize.
  • The free and unmerited favour of God.
  • It implies compassion that goes without punishment even when justice demands it. A favor rendered by one who need not do so.
  • G – God’s
    R – Riches
  • A – At
    C – Christ’s
    E – Expense

What does the Bible say about grace?

  • John 1:16-17: For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
  • Romans 3:23-24: … for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus …
  • Romans 6:14: For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. 
  • Ephesians 2:8: For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.

My dear friends in Christ, because of GRACE we have been set free from the law! Because of GRACE we have been forgiven for our sins. Because of GRACE we can be saved. GRACE has been given to us as a GIFT and all we need to do is to accept that gift. This gift has a name, GRACE have a name: Jesus Christ!

If you have not yet accepted the gift of GRACE, if you have not accepted Jesus into your life, then today is a perfect time to do it. If you accept Jesus Christ into your life today, it means you accept the gift of God, GRACE, and this means that you will be forgiven for your sins and will be set free. What will you do, what do you choose? I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Rev 3:15. If you haven’t yet accepted Jesus as your saviour, it is important that you know that you would eventually have to choose. 

Why Jesus?

People sometimes ask why should I accept Jesus. You get 3 types of people, one that believes in Jesus, one that believes in Jesus and follow Him and one that don’t believe at all. Many people that believe in Jesus don’t follow Jesus and therefore will not be saved. I believe that only believing in Jesus is not enough. I believe that if you only believe and don’t follow Jesus, it is nearly as good as saying that you don’t believe.  Does that make sense?

Let me tell you the difference between having or not having Jesus in your life. Both believers/followers or non-believers go through trial and difficulties, so don’t think that because you a follower you will not be tempted or sin, trust me, when you a true follower, you sometimes even go through more, simply because satan don’t like the fact that you follow Jesus.

Now, when the non-believer go through extreme difficulty, may it be financially, health or whatever it may be, where do they go to for help? Friends? Family? The thing is a friends or family member can only help so much, isn’t that true? So, then some of these non-believers go and find “help” elsewhere. It may be in alcohol, maybe drugs or maybe end up committing suicide. And then what happens to their spirit?

But a true follower of Christ, when in trial and tribulation, turn to Jesus! Not only are they forgiven, they receive the Holy Spirit, the real and true Helper. They will sometimes fall, but they will always get back up. Why? Because they accepted the greatest gift of God, GRACE –  JESUS. Through Jesus there is ALWAYS a way out and HE provides it. So, what will you do?

Let’s move on to forgiveness.

Meaning of the word forgiveness

The action or process of forgiving or being forgiven.

I don’t want to talk too much about forgiveness as this is indeed a topic covered by many speakers and books, but I would like to cover one very important aspect of forgiveness. So many people say that I will forgive but will not forget. My fellow Christians, if we say that, we are doing more harm to ourselves than to the one we need to forgive. Also, if we say I will forgive, but won’t forget, we don’t really forgive. If we plan not to forget, then it means that every time that topic comes up, we are reminded about the anger it caused which then triggers us to get angry again. It also means that we keep on talking about it and then it means we keep getting angry again and again. How can we call that forgiveness? To really forgive means to forgive and LET GO!

What does the Bible say about forgiveness?

  • Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Col 3:13
  • For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. Matt 6:14
  • Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. Matt 18:21-22 

It is important to know that when Jesus said seventy times seven, He used this as an example that we must always continue to forgive!

Forgiveness Vs Grace 

Forgiveness have an expectation and is a reactive art. Forgiveness have an expectation, because when we apologize, we expect the other party to respond and accept the apology and to forget about what we did, or vice versa.

Grace is proactive and have no expectation. Grace is the acceptance that we are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect society.  Grace takes the locus of control and places it in the needs and intentions of others.  Grace accepts that there does not need to be any reward to us for our acceptance of imperfections, our own and others.  Grace simply requires that we make space for one another amid that imperfection.

Furthermore, when it comes to forgiveness we kind of expect the person who hurt us to make things right and we then find ourselves saying I will forgive and forget, but I will never trust that person again. BUT, when we do that it means that the forgiveness came at a “price”, didn’t it? With GRACE my friends, there is no price to pay, which is why it is called GRACE. Remember, GRACE is a gift. Grace is accepting that there will be places in our relationship where both you and I are imperfect, and not allowing such imperfections to erect a barrier between us.  Grace is naming that there are things we value more than the offense that our imperfections of relationship might offer, things such as love, fellowship, faith, and community. Do you think when Jesus was hanging on that cross that he said: I forgive you, but I will never forget? No, He showed GRACE.

Let us establish GRACE in our lives every day!

I deal with so many people that experience so many challenges in their lives being hurt by people, may it be in their marriage, friendships, family and yes, even in church. Not to even mention the challenges and hurt people experienced through the history of our country, South Africa, and the present times we live in. If you are not from South Africa, I am sure you at some stage had your own set of challenges in your country.

We hear so many people say that if only he or she or they can learn to forgive and move on. The problem here is not really forgiveness. I do believe that people forgive, but choose not to forget.  The real problem here is we do not show GRACE to one another! We do not respect one another for who we are. When we want to resolve issues, we feel that there should always be a winner and someone always must “pay”.

This is also the problem I have with forgiveness. For me, forgiveness is useless without GRACE. The good news is that there is an easy solution to this problem. Let us establish GRACE within our families, our friendships, at work, at church and also within our country. BUT this is also a process which we will discuss just now, the process to overcome the challenges we are faced with.

Let’s talk about race 

It’s interesting that after more than 20 years of democracy in South Africa, we still are faced with a huge challenge and that challenge is called RACE and I feel there are many reasons for this. Nelson Mandela had a dream and vision for this beautiful country and he laid the foundation to make this a reality. But since Mandela left the office, things started to deteriorate and nobody after him really continued where he left off.

Secondly, our government never implemented programs or projects to address racial conflict. Some private companies did, where black and white sat together and discussed race. We all know the best treatment for any problem is to talk about it and some private companies saw the value in it. Then also from a Christian perspective, how many churches got up and addressed the race issue? How many had projects or programs running to try and fix the racial divide? Today I would like to address this as the Lord has put it on my heart.

For me it all starts with looking at each of us as individuals and also our past. Let’s talk about apartheid. Was this right or wrong? You see my friends we cannot move forward if we cannot see where we came from and if what we did was wrong. We cannot move forward in love if we don’t go back and address the mistakes of the past. Off course apartheid was wrong, how could it be right? I grew up during apartheid so I know what happened. I want to share just one story, a story about my black friend and my story is only a very small one compared to the stories people could tell that lived and struggled through it.

In the days of apartheid, most white people had domestic workers, who of cause where black. Next door to us there was this little boy, which was the same age as me and whose mother worked for our neighbour. We used to talk and sometimes play together, but I cannot really remember what we talked about. What I do remember is that one day the police van stopped outside our house and they then arrested the mother and boy, putting them in the back of the van. I could not understand this, I could not understand why my friend had to be arrested and I was upset.

My brother then told me that the black lady stayed in the neighbour’s house with the boy and that the boy wasn’t allowed there and not allowed to talk to me. Now I don’t know if that was the real reason, but what I do know is that they were arrested because of some stupid apartheid law. I really could not understand this and I actually cried as this apartheid thing did not make sense to me at all. I also want to mention that I was in the South African Police for nearly 10 years, which part of it was during the apartheid era, and in that time, I also experienced a lot of discrimination and racism.

During the apartheid years, I heard more than once how people, and even churches, preached that black people are not equal to whites and that is why we have apartheid. But then again, I once had a conversation with my mom and dad about this and apartheid in general, asking them why this was implemented, since I could not understand the reason behind such a stupid law. My dad explained that there wasn’t real democracy in those years and therefore the general public had no say over the implementation of apartheid. My mom then told me that before apartheid started, black and white were living together without problems. She said that in the area she grew up, they had black neighbours and nobody ever complaint about it, living together in peace and harmony.

Clearly the government of the day implemented this law, not giving the general public a say in it and while many did not support it, some did and some used it to their advantage. The fact is apartheid was wrong and discriminating against someone based on the colour of their skin was wrong, it still is and it always will be. It is important that we all realize that and admit it.

What does the Bible say?

Many people say that the Word of God says nothing or not much about all of us being equal but I will now proof you wrong. Have a look at these scriptures, write them down and go study them:

Matt 28:19: Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Read it again and answer this question: Did Jesus say go and make disciples of the white nations or did He say ALL nations? 

John 6:40: For my Father’s will is that EVERYONE who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. Did Jesus say His Father’s will is that white people that looks to the Son and believes will have eternal life or did He say EVERYONE? 

John 11:25-26: I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and WHOEVER lives by believing in me will never die. Did Jesus say white people who believes in me will live or did He say EVERYONE? 

Rom 3:29-30: Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? YES, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God. 

Rom 10:12: For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of ALL and richly blesses ALL who call on Him. 

Acts 2:21: And EVERYONE who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. 

Gal 3:26-28: So in Christ Jesus you are ALL children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are ALL ONE in Christ Jesus. Now this is a very interested statement from the Bible. This touches on all kinds of racism and discrimination!

There are a lot more scriptures, but why not take on a challenge today and go read your Bible from start to finish and you will know what I mean and talk about. Also, God created different nations, different people, right from the beginning of earth. Why don’t you just go and read the entire book of Genesis and you will see how he even created different nations from one mother and father! Go read it!

So first of all, let ALL OF US realize that everyone is equal and we are all children of God. Secondly, let us all agree that apartheid was wrong. If we continue to live that false dream of satan then we will never fix our country. Next up is those that suffered from apartheid. Let us learn to really forgive. That means we need to forget and move on. We cannot continuously live in the past or continue to bring up the past. How can we fix and build on our future if we keep going back to the past?

Let’s stop making the enemy happy. Let us stop giving him what he wants, stop entertaining him. If we keep living in the past we will create another and another and another generation of racists, people blaming people for what they did to others. Another issue that I feel is wrong, is when people blame the past for everything that goes wrong, playing the race card just because we can. A great example I want to use is the day I went shopping, when a guy parked illegally, so I approached him and asked him if he cannot see that he cannot park there. So, he asked me if I say he is blind and the next moment, here comes the race card. Ooh its only because I am black. REALLY! Why do people have to read race into every situation?

Another example is the day I saw some guys breaking into a house and when I told someone about this, the first thing they said was that the guys were probably black. Really? Let’s think about this one for a while. If a country’s population is 80% black, would the majority of criminals not be black? When you stay in a European country where the majority of the population is white, would the majority of the criminals not be white? Of course, it would be! I travelled to many places all over the world and trust me, it is indeed true.

Then you also get the issue of poverty. If you not a true follower of Jesus, are poor and do not have money to buy food, you going to find other means of getting money to stay alive. I saw this while staying in Pretoria where poverty in the white communities is rather big and within these communities I have seen many white people turning to crime. I saw many white people breaking into houses and even killing people to rob them from their personal belongings. So surely you would agree with me that crime has no colour! So why then blame a specific race? When will we stop playing the race card and see the problem for what it is?

I have also seen quite a few people, especially those who love to play the race card, believe that they can solve all our problems by picking up guns and going to war. My friends in Christ, turning to violence to solve problems will only create more problems, not just for now, but for many generations to come. I actually have scripture for those that believe that turning to violence will solve problems: Put your sword back in its place, Jesus said to him, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. (Matt 26:52) 

I know that I wrote a lot about race now, but everything I have written above, as well as the scriptures from the Bible I gave, also applies to ANY kind of discrimination. I am sure that you would agree with me that there is no place in the life of a Christian for any type of racism or discrimination. Let us all fight this together and stand up against it, let us not allow the enemy to destroy what God has created in His image.

I want to end my discussion on race with these wise words of Nelson Mandela: No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. – Long walk to Freedom, the autobiography of Nelson Mandela.

The Solution

I have an 8-point plan as a solution, which I would now like to share with you. This does not only apply to my discussion on race, but on all challenges we face regarding forgiveness within our communities, families, friends, at work and in church.

  1. Accept Jesus into your live. Become a follower, a disciple. When we have a personal relationship with Jesus, we will have the heart of Jesus, we will learn to forgive.
  2. Forgive AND FORGET! Remember, when we forgive but don’t forget, we actually doing more harm to ourselves.
  3. Leave the past behind. When we drive a car, and keep looking into the back mirror, we cannot focus on what is happening in front of us and might just end up crashing into the car in front. Life works the same way. Forget the past, focus on what is happening right now and keep your focus on Jesus.
  4. Accept that we are all equal. Let us refrain from discriminating against others.
  5. Accept that we are all uniquely made by God and can sometimes think and act differently/do things differently and learn to respect that.
  6. Make an effort to get to know each other. At our Cape Town conference, I challenged everyone to go back home and make an effort to spend time with someone from a different race, to really get to know them. A few weeks after the conference I received feedback from people who did just that and who thanked me for challenging them to do it, as they made great new friends. Why don’t you do the same? It will change your life!
  7. Don’t run away or get angry every time we don’t agree on something. Work things through. See things through the other persons eyes!
  8. Live by GRACE! It is grace that build communities and relationships, not forgiveness.

Closing

I want to invite you to watch the movie, Grace Card. It will open your eyes to a new world, touch your heart and change your life. In the movie you will see how these people make use of the Grace Card and today I want to challenge you to do the same. The Grace Card – I promise to pray for you every day, ask your forgiveness, grant you the same, and be your friend always. For it is by Grace you have been saved. Eph 2:11. Make yourself a small card and print these words on it and hand it out to your loved ones, your partner, your family, friends and within your communities.

Now go back to that piece of paper where you have written the names of the people you need to forgive or those who have not yet forgiven you. Matt 6:14 says: For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. Today we going to ask for forgiveness and we going to forgive and forget those who have done wrong to us. Today we are going to apply grace to every area of our lives.

Jesus, today I acknowledge that you are the Son of God. Jesus, I invite you into my heart and my life. Come live inside of me, come make me new. Jesus, thank you for the opportunity today to ask for forgiveness. Lord I know that you will forgive me for my sins and that this forgiveness does not come at a price. Jesus, I know that you have already paid the price so that I don’t need to. Jesus thank you for your grace, thank you that you have saved me. Lord Jesus Christ, today I forgive and forget and show grace towards all of these people on my list (name them) that have sinned against me and today I leave this in the past where it belongs. Lord Jesus Christ today I also ask for forgiveness of my own sin, my sin in my own life, but also the sin against others. Holy Spirit I invite you into my life. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen. 

For it is by Grace you have been saved. Eph 2:11