Archives for October 2015

A Thousand Stories I Wish I Could Tell

“A Thousand Stories I Wish I Could Tell”

By Mark Maulding

Written September 24 and 25, 2015

Read October 10, 2015 at GLI’s 20 Anniversary Celebration

A thousand stories, I wish I could tell

Of those who have come to us with their own personal hell.

Each story has a familiar ring

Of sadness, rejection, disappointment and sting.

As they trust us with their inner most shame filled thoughts,

We often hear, “You’re the only one who knows this though for years for someone like you I’ve sought.”

There are often long-time overdue tears,

That have come from pent up anger, hurt and fears.

As they open their hearts to us, they are wondering inside,

“Do you think I’m crazy or is there really hope for me in Christ?”

When their story we’ve compassionately heard,

We show them that there is hope to be found in God’s Word.

Living life in their own strength has caused many scars,

Because the real culprit called the flesh has put them behind prison bars.

They sit and listen wanting Jesus to be their answer,

But they are skeptical since their turmoil feels like an incurable cancer.

At some point, the light begins to dawn in their heart,

Maybe Jesus is better than I knew from the start.

Complete forgiveness is hard for most to swallow,

When all they’ve ever been told is “You’ll have to confess your sins again tomorrow.”

Yet, God’s work on the cross in Christ was so complete,

Every sin is forgiven before they commit it which brings them great relief.

And better yet, when we show them the cross has another side,

Their death, burial, and resurrection with Christ causes many to cry.

When they understand that their broken, sinful identity has been crucified,

Great joy arises as they embrace their true, righteous identity in Christ.

“Why haven’t I heard this before?” is often shared with a shout.

“Its right here in God’s Word, which leaves no doubt.”

But the story of the Gospel gets even better again,

When they see they have died to the authority of the law and the power of sin.

Living united with God they finally begin to comprehend,

Was God’s desire for all, including them from the beginning to the end.

When we help them become more familiar with hearing God’s voice, it brings great comfort causing them to rejoice.

Daily reliance on Christ in them for inner strength,

Soon turns into Spirit produced fruit, blessing others they meet.

Though life for many remains hard year after year,

They now know they are not on their own though Satan might sneer.

Be assured, no one ever gets all of living by grace just right,

But over time, the life of Jesus in them comes more and more to light.

Then when that final enemy named death inevitably comes,

On the other side, they will hear my child and my servant, well done, well done.

Mark Maulding, President and Founder

www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!

10-22-15 Jesus is the Answer in Counseling

Christians are no different than non-Christians in that they have emotional problems, addiction problems, marital problems, parenting problems and more. Christians are very different than non-Christians in that they believe, or at least want to believe that Jesus is their answer.

However, when a Christian goes to a trusted spiritual advisor, many times they are told that they may need something besides Jesus to help them. I will concede that if a person has a brain chemistry problem causing their depression, etc., God can certainly use a good doctor to prescribe helpful medication. But after 25 years of counseling Christians, I, along with my staff, can honestly say that Jesus does heal, free and restore the wounded soul.

Would it be surprising to learn that the Gospel itself promises this? When Jesus stood in the synagogue to inaugurate His ministry, He made this unmistakably clear. Listen in your heart and mind to what He read about Himself and the Gospel in Luke 9:17-19. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”

Jesus says He came to heal the brokenhearted. When Jesus saves a person, He not only forgives them, indwells them and gives them a new identity, He also desires to heal those with a broken heart. A broken heart is a fractured heart. It can be brought on by a severed relationship, the sins of others against us or our own sins. A broken heart is not punishment from God but it can be the consequences of sin. It can also include the sickness, pain and difficulty of living in this fallen world. It may present itself as anger, depression, anxiety, rage, panic attacks, relationship problems, disappointment, discouragement, irrational fears, hopelessness, constant frustration and more.

But, be encouraged! Jesus is the answer you’ve been looking for and at GLI, our specific mission from God is to listen to your heart, then share with you God’s amazing heart for you.

When we first started GLI, a couple of pastors from one of the large local churches made an appointment to check us out. They asked me all kinds of very good questions. Finally, I looked them both in the eye with a smile and said, “Jesus really is the answer in counseling”. One of them jumped up and almost shouted, “I always knew that was true but I could never find anyone who believed it.” We believe it at GLI and have 1000’s of transformed lives to prove it.

Maybe you’ve tried everything you know to get help, but you are still hurting. You may be like the lady who went to 10 other counselors before she came to us so Jesus could heal her broken heart. If you live too far away, we can counsel you over Skype like we do so many others. Or, we can refer you to someone in your area. Just email us at info@GraceLifeInternational.comor call us at 704-522-9026.

Believe it! It’s the Gospel.

Live Free In Christ,

Mark Maulding, President and Founder

www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!

10-22-15 Jesus is the Answer in Counseling

But, be encouraged! Jesus is the answer you’ve been looking for and at GLI, our specific mission from God is to listen to your heart, then share with you God’s amazing heart for you.

Believe it! It’s the Gospel.

Live Free In Christ,

Mark Maulding, President and Founder

www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!

Legalistic Discipleship VS Grace Discipleship

A lot of discipleship may be rooted in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Let me explain what I mean. The knowledge of good and evil passed down to every human being from Adam and Eve has programmed us to think a certain way. The world thinks, “I’m a good person if I do good things. I’m a bad person if I do bad things.” The Christian world thinks, “I’m a good Christian if I do the good things the Bible says to do. I’m a bad Christian if I sin.” All of that thinking is law-based instead of grace-based.

Discipleship often has the goal of Christian behavior modification using Scripture to exhort a Christian to act good instead of bad. The focus is on changing behavior, not replacing the knowledge of good and evil thinking with Tree of Life thinking. In one sense, you might say discipleship is trying to get Christians to jump from the bad side of the tree to the good side. But the good side is still the same tree and the fruit is legalism. I don’t think those who disciple this way have evil motives or are aware of what they are doing. They just do it because that is how they were taught. I was once one of them!

God wants our discipleship to be rooted in the Tree of Life so He can produce the fruit of the Spirit. This means, He wants to replace our stinking thinking with grace based thinking. No wonder Paul didn’t tell the Roman Christians to do anything for the first eleven chapters! He strategically explained the Gospel of grace line by line. He only told them to believe and yield to God in Romans 6:11 and 14 Consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. Then, in chapter 12, he tells them to let Christ live through their bodies and to live with a renewed mind. What he meant was, he wanted them to let the clear Gospel message he had written to them push out their knowledge based thinking with grace based thinking. After making it clear to them that they have a new identity in Christ which loves to please God, he tells them how believing this will change their behavior to what pleases God.

Do you ever find yourself tired of trying to change your behavior to line up with Scripture? Are you worn out? That’s what burned me out 25 years ago until God broke through my garrison of legalistic discipleship and began to replace it with grace discipleship. The first one almost killed me. The latter has given me a life of freedom, I could have never imagined, which I am still growing in.

I desperately want you and/or someone you care about to hear about grace discipleship. Please accept my invitation to join me in person or by Skype, Wednesday night, October 21, from 6:00-9:00pm. I will be teaching Romans 5, one of the greatest passages of Scripture on grace discipleship in the entire Bible. It will blow your mind and blow some of the legalistic thinking out of your mind too!

To join me, you must register so we can make sure you get the notes. And, it’s FREE! To register, simply email our Director of Training at Sandy@GraceLifeInternational.com.com or call us at 704-522-9026.

Believe it! It’s the Gospel.

Live Free In Christ,

Mark Maulding, President and Founder

www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!

Legalistic Discipleship VS Grace Discipleship

Believe it! It’s the Gospel.

Live Free In Christ,

Mark Maulding, President and Founder

www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!

Can Christians Break Fellowship with God?

Have you ever heard that when you sin, you are no longer in fellowship with God? It was one of the most common teachings I heard growing up in church, as well as with the Christian organization I was involved with in college.

The picture painted was that your sin put up a barrier between you and God so that He couldn’t be close to you or bless you. In fact, He might even punish you by making bad things happen in your life until you got right with Him again.

The solution always given was for you to confess your sins to God and to be very sincere about it so that God would know you really meant it! Then, you could be assured that you were forgiven again. That resulted in you being back in fellowship with God. However for years, I often wondered if I had convinced God that I was sincere enough to be forgiven.

The idea that a Christian can break fellowship with God comes from an Old Covenant mindset that if you will obey God, He will get close to you; but, if you don’t, He will turn away from you. See Deuteronomy 28.

The good news is that none of that is true since we are people under the New Covenant. Here is why:

1. We are united to God. You can’t get any closer to God than that and sin doesn’t break that union. 1 Corinthians 6:17

2. All your sins are already forgiven whether you confess them or not. See Colossians 2:13 and Ephesians 4:31-32. (Though it’s fine and probably healthy to tell God when you sin, that doesn’t get you more of His forgiveness.)

3. We are not under the law of blessing and cursing laid out in the Old Covenant. We are already blessed to the max with every spiritual blessing in Christ, according to Ephesians 1:3.

The word for fellowship in the New Testament is the word we use today for intimacy. John wanted the people he wrote to enjoy this intimacy just as he did. 1 John 1:3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

When we sin, we do not lose our fellowship with God, that is, our intimacy with God. It’s impossible because Jesus has finished everything required by the Father to get us into fellowship with Him and to keep us there. It’s totally based on Jesus’ performance on the cross, not ours.

Enjoy your fellowship/intimacy with God without fear that you will break fellowship with Him. You can’t! You can relax and live in confidence each day as a fully forgiven, permanently united, free from the law and sin, child of God, because The Cross worked!

Can Christians Break Fellowship with God?

The good news is that none of that is true since we are people under the New Covenant. Here is why:

1. We are united to God. You can’t get any closer to God than that and sin doesn’t break that union. 1 Corinthians 6:17

3. We are not under the law of blessing and cursing laid out in the Old Covenant. We are already blessed to the max with every spiritual blessing in Christ, according to Ephesians 1:3.

God’s Answer to Survival of the Fittest

At age 13, I distinctly remember one conscious thought which gripped me through high school and beyond. It was this. “I want to be the best.” I wanted to be the best dressed, the best basketball player, the best looking, the best student, the best classmate, and the best son. I failed at most of those, but not all. For the most part, I wasn’t the best at all.

At age 19, when Jesus became more real to me than He’d ever been, I wanted to be the best Christian, too. In fact, I so much wanted to be the best that I wanted God to look down on me and say, “You’re the best Christian I’ve ever seen, except for maybe Paul.” And I wanted others to at least think it. It seemed to work for several years but eventually, it all came crashing down around me.

At age 31, this drive to be the best drove me into the ground. I kept failing and the more I failed, the less I thought of myself. I ended up deeply depressed, discouraged and miserable. Underneath my pursuit to be the best was really the drive to be important, that is valuable. The desire to feel valuable is actually a God-given need.

My problem? I had been born with the survival of the fittest mentality. Survival of the fittest is the thinking that only the best are truly valuable in this life. It’s not just about biology but it’s about theology. This thinking is a lie. Jesus said, The last will be first, and the first will be last. (Matthew 20:16)

This dysfunctional thinking is in all of us. That is why people relegate themselves to one of three categories. They believe they are in the successful crowd, the failure crowd or the ordinary crowd.

This survival of the fittest didn’t start with Darwin. It started in the Garden when our great, great, great, grandparents ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. “But you must never eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because when you eat from it you will certainly die.” (Genesis 2:17) When they did, their mind was immediately filled with “anti-grace” thinking. “If I perform well, I am a successful person. If I don’t, I am a miserable failure.” It was a real tree which dispensed real knowledge which has poisoned the human mind of every person ever born.

God’s answer to the survival of the fittest is the survival of the weakest. We have no strength at all to fill our need to feel valuable. Only Jesus has been able to do this for us. In His weakness, dying on the cross, He succeeded in making us what we have always wanted to be – important regardless of our performance. See how very much our Father loves us, for He calls us His children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know Him. (1 John 3:1 NLT)

Believe it! It’s the Gospel.

Live Free In Christ,

Mark Maulding, President and Founder

God’s Answer to Survival of the Fittest

This dysfunctional thinking is in all of us. That is why people relegate themselves to one of three categories. They believe they are in the successful crowd, the failure crowd or the ordinary crowd.

Believe it! It’s the Gospel.

Live Free In Christ,

Mark Maulding, President and Founder

Archives for October 2015

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