Category: Christian good works

Heir by Position, Pauper by Practice #10

Wednesday, January 14, 2026

“Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ” (Galatians 4:7 KJV).

Saints, we in Christ are spiritual winners and heirs by position, but we can choose to be spiritual losers and paupers by practice!

Grace is all that Father God is able and willing to do for us sinners through Christ’s finished crosswork. Our spiritual riches or blessings in Christ resulting from grace include: forgiveness (sin-debt cleared or sent away), justification (imputed righteousness, given a right standing before God), sanctification (being set apart unto God’s purposes), eternal life (given God’s very life), and redemption (purchased, or bought back, and freed).

A “pauper” is a very poor person, one lacking sufficient money to live normally and comfortably. Though the flesh (Adam) attempts to live the Christian life, it does not, cannot, and never will. Religious works can never substitute Christ’s life: only Christ can live His life. Living in the energy of the flesh is spiritual pauperism, for no spiritual riches can be derived from it. “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:1-3). Can we in our own strength improve the Holy Spirit’s work in us? No! Do our feeble efforts “perfect” (complete, finish) the Christian life? No!

Read the verses following today’s Scripture: “Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?” (Galatians 4:8,9). Like we, the Galatians before they came to faith in Christ were slaves to sin (Satan, idols, et cetera). Yet, as believers, they were still opposed to God’s work, ignoring Grace to receive the “weak and beggarly” Law system (like heathenism, a system of spiritual immaturity, spiritual poverty, and spiritual inability). Though members of the Body of Christ, they had confused themselves with the nation Israel….

Heir by Position, Pauper by Practice #9

Tuesday, January 13, 2026

“Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ” (Galatians 4:7 KJV).

Saints, we in Christ are spiritual winners and heirs by position, but we can choose to be spiritual losers and paupers by practice!

To the Apostle Paul were committed both the Dispensation of the Grace of God (Ephesians 3:1,2) and the Gospel of the Grace of God (Acts 20:24). Note the Gospel of Grace: “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;…. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:…” (1 Corinthians 15:1,3,4). “Gospel” in Greek means “good news, glad tidings.” We have a sin problem due to our biological connection to Adam (the bad news of Ephesians 2:1-3), but the God of the Bible has intervened with a solution to save us from our sins and fill us Christians with His life (the good news of Ephesians 2:4-10). Now, by faith, in order to have victorious Christian living, we make use of Christ’s merits on Calvary’s cross.

“For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge [conclude], that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again…. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:14,15,17). This is the Christian’s new identity (“in Christ”) and the Christian’s new purpose (“should not henceforth live unto themselves”). Also, read of the Christian’s resources—his or her spiritual riches—in Christ: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:…” (Ephesians 1:3).

Let us now see precisely what it means to live as a spiritual pauper….

Heir by Position, Pauper by Practice #8

Monday, January 12, 2026

“Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ” (Galatians 4:7 KJV).

Saints, we in Christ are spiritual winners and heirs by position, but we can choose to be spiritual losers and paupers by practice!

Another distinction to be made in “right division” (2 Timothy 2:15) is that of Law versus Grace—a difference the Galatians had failed to recognize. Christendom’s thousands of warring denominations today are either based entirely on Law (“legalism”) or various blends of Law and Grace (“Galatianism”). They have no clear concept of pure (!) Grace (!), what the God of the Bible is doing today: they know not what program He currently has in force or who is His present spokesman. God’s relations with mankind change through time because man changes, and the dispensational change that affects us is that which took place in Acts chapter 9 with the salvation and commissioning of Saul of Tarsus to make him Paul the Apostle (“apostle” is from Greek, and means “sent one [messenger]”).

Here are the resurrected, ascended, and glorified Lord Jesus Christ’s words to Paul in Acts chapter 9 historically: “Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee [‘I make thee an apostle’],…” (Acts 26:17). Years later, Paul wrote: “For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:…” (Romans 11:13). Some years after that, he added: “For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward:…” (Ephesians 3:1,2). Understanding Paul’s apostleship is key to ascertaining God’s will for us, His words to and about us. If we know what the Lord is doing today, then we can do that by faith and thereby do His will for our lives!

God’s current “economy,” “house-rules,” or “governing principles” are titled “the Dispensation of the Grace of God.” This encompasses Paul’s epistles, Romans to Philemon. At the core of the Dispensation of the Grace of God is the Gospel of the Grace of God….

Heir by Position, Pauper by Practice #7

Sunday, January 11, 2026

“Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ” (Galatians 4:7 KJV).

Saints, we in Christ are spiritual winners and heirs by position, but we can choose to be spiritual losers and paupers by practice!

Romans is the standard of grace/Christian living. As is made clear in its first eight chapters, it is entirely grace (God’s work) and not law (man’s work). “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law” (Romans 3:23-28).

“For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid” (Romans 6:14,15). “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to [separated from] the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God” (Romans 7:4). “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:1-4).

As the Christian life begins by faith in Christ alone, so it operates on the same basis—God’s work, not ours….

Heir by Position, Pauper by Practice #6

Saturday, January 10, 2026

“Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ” (Galatians 4:7 KJV).

Saints, we in Christ are spiritual winners and heirs by position, but we can choose to be spiritual losers and paupers by practice!

Go back to Ephesians 2:1-3, and read it now with verses 4-10: “[1] And you hath he [God] quickened [given life], who were dead in trespasses and sins; [2] Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: [3] Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. [4] But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, [5] Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved; ) [6] And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: [7] That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. [8] For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: [9] Not of works, lest any man should boast. [10] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

The individual Christian’s past identity and conduct as a lost person (verses 1-3) stand in contrast to God intervening and introducing changes to move the person from “in Adam” to “in Christ” (verses 4-10). Here is God’s grace factory, His procedure of creating a people for His glory and filling them with His life. Nevertheless, if these people are not thinking according to this sound Bible doctrine, they will keep living according to the lusts of their sinful flesh, and such Christian service will be unacceptable to God….

A Life That Will Please

Sunday, January 4, 2026

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20 KJV).

Today’s Scripture tells us who alone can live a life pleasing in God’s sight!

Everyone does “good” deeds. Yet, doing “good” is not necessarily good. For instance, people often do “good” just to receive praise/reward, make up for their wrongs, feel good, et cetera. Furthermore, despite our “good” deeds, we have plenty more bad ones! Pride, lying, evil thoughts, being a false witness, and being contentious are some of the things the LORD hates (Proverbs 6:16-19).

Mankind cannot even keep 10 simple rules from God. However, religion continues to urge us to keep seven sacraments, utter various prayers, give assorted offerings and “tithes,” attend numerous feasts and festivals, and perform sundry other tasks to “hopefully” please God and avoid hellfire. Whether we attempt to keep a church’s laws, our laws, or God’s laws, our flesh is far too weak to ever measure up. Just look at what God’s religion did to Israel—how much worse some man-made religion does to us!

As Saul of Tarsus, the Apostle Paul was a Pharisee, a religious leader of Israel. He was a nitpicker concerning Law-keeping, and yet, after his soul salvation, he admitted that all of his religion was “but dung” compared to Jesus Christ’s righteousness (Philippians 3:3-11). Even for the Christian, to live a perfect life is impossible (read of Paul’s miserable existence in Romans chapter 7). Paul had to forsake his vain religion and learn today’s Scripture: the Christian life is NOT the performance of the Christian, but the Lord Jesus Christ living and working in the Christian, as the Christian walks in an intelligent understanding of God’s Word to him or her!

If we trust a Saviour who will save—the Lord Jesus Christ—and trust a Book that will teach—the King James Bible—we can redeem the year for the great God and our Saviour, “who loved [us], and gave himself for [us]!” 🙂

Saints, please remember this work of the ministry requires monthly financial support to operate (Galatians 6:6; Philippians 4:16-17; 2 Corinthians 9:6-7). Those who prefer electronic giving can donate securely here: https://www.paypal.me/ShawnBrasseaux. Anyone who wishes to donate by regular mail can visit https://333wordsofgrace.org/contact-us-mailing-address-for-donations/ for details. Thanks to all who give to and pray for us! Unfortunately, since our ministry audience is so large and our ministry staff is so small, I can no longer personally respond to everyone. Thanks so much for understanding in this regard. 🙂

Redeem the Year!

Thursday, January 1, 2026

“See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is” (Ephesians 5:15-17 KJV).

What great advice for 2026!

Despite 2,000 years of Bible schools and seminaries, 2,000 years of a completed Bible canon, 2,000 years of Bible reading in churches, several decades of “Christian” television and radio, and a decade-plus of widespread use of “Christian” websites, how sad that Bible ignorance is still quite extensive (it is as if God never gave His Word to start with!).

Frankly, the Church the Body of Christ needs to wake up! The verse previous to today’s Scripture says, “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (verse 14). Paul, loosely quoting Isaiah 60:1, reminded us that the spiritual ignorance that gripped Israel in Isaiah’s day seized Christians in his day—and it still grips Christians 20 centuries later. Feel-good sermons, enjoyable “worship” services, and rites, rituals, and ceremonies will NOT solve this problem—they exacerbate it!

“[God] will have all men to be saved…” (1 Timothy 2:4a). Do you want this New Year to count for God’s glory? First, you need to get saved from sins and hell! You need to become a Christian by trusting in and relying on Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection as sufficient payment for your sins (1 Corinthians 15:3,4). That is only part of God’s will for you, for 1 Timothy 2:4b continues, “[God] will have all men… to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” Now, God’s will for your Christian life is daily, personal Bible study to renew your mind, so your faith in those verses can cause God to work in your life—it will be His life, thus making you “perfect [spiritually mature], throughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:16,17).

Today’s Scripture urges us to buy back the time Satan has robbed from God (time created for God’s glory). By faith, we need to make that time glorify the Lord Jesus Christ by applying His Word, particularly Paul’s epistles of Romans through Philemon, to our lives. Have a good year in Christ! 🙂

You can download our free “One-Year Bible Reading Schedule.”

See our archived Bible Q&A: “What Scriptural advice can you give me for the New Year?”

The Person of the Year

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

“Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow…” (Philippians 2:9,10a KJV).

Let us praise the 2025 Person of the Year—our Lord Jesus Christ!

Society’s most stressful time of year, the Christmas Season, is winding down. The year 2025 is nearly over, and a new year, 2026, will dawn soon. At this time every year, various groups and publications feature their particular choice for “Person of the Year.” Whether a chief of state, a philanthropist, a religious leader, a distinguished author or scientist, a television or radio personality, or some other “professional” who impacted society in a negative or positive way the most during the past year, they are all still people with limitations and frailties. One can accomplish all sorts of praiseworthy, generous, and awe-inspiring feats. However, what carries the most weight is the attitude, the heart, underlying the action, not the action. Was it Jesus Christ, or simply the flesh?

The one single event in history that pleased God the Father most was when His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, went by faith in His Word, to an awful Roman cross to suffer the worst possible and most graphic death a human ever experienced, to pay for our sins. “Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11). It is through that finished crosswork of Jesus Christ that He is still doing mighty works, 20 centuries later. How our Lord Jesus Christ has saved countless souls from sins and hell this past year, and how He has saved innumerable Christian souls from false doctrine and spiritual ruin.

Jesus Christ, who in death defeated His greatest enemy (Satan), was raised by God the Father and is now the ascended and glorified Lord Jesus Christ (today’s Scripture). Saints, may we ever thank and praise our Saviour Jesus Christ for what He has done for us, what He has done with us, and what He will do with us next year… and all the countless ages thereafter….

NOTE: Saints, believe it or not, we close yet another year of grace ministry. Thank you for your continued prayer and encouragement these last 12 months. We surely needed it. While we have come so very far, we still have so much more ground to cover, so much more sound Bible doctrine to learn and believe, and we look forward to serving you here for at least another year (provided our Lord Jesus Christ wills it). So, with that, I sign off for 2025. See you in 2026! 🙂

Scrooges and Christians

Tuesday, December 16, 2025

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17 KJV).

To the old identity, we say, “Bah, Humbug!” To the new, we say, “God has blessed us, everyone in Christ.”

Other than Jesus Christ’s conception and birth as found in the Holy Bible, there is one other classic story associated with Christmastime. British author Charles Dickens’ 1843 book, A Christmas Carol, focuses on the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge (the novella has some Christian influence).

From the onset, Scrooge is a wealthy, miserable, mean, stingy, and selfish old man. His employee, Bob Cratchit, is underpaid (yet, strangely, Ebenezer observes, Cratchit is cheerful). Scrooge refuses to donate to charities collecting for the destitute—to him, Christmastime is a time for others to “pick his pocket.” He even refuses to attend his nephew’s Christmas party. What a miser!

Through visitations by four Spirits—his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley; and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future—Scrooge is forced to realize what a thoroughly rotten man he is. Once confronted with his future, the awful events that lie ahead, he asks for another chance to make things right (which, thankfully, he receives and does!). The Scrooge at the end of the book is drastically different from the Scrooge at the beginning. Scrooge is now loving, warm, cheerful, and generous—he is a brand-new man.

Bible-believing Christians recognize parallels between Dickens’ work and the Holy Scriptures. The sinner starts off rotten, a rebel from birth—selfish, miserable, and mean. When he or she comes to realize that pitiful condition he or she is in, and comes by simple faith in Jesus Christ’s finished crosswork as sufficient payment for their sins, God gives him or her a new identity (today’s Scripture). That identity is designed to influence subsequent actions. Scrooge did not simply change his outward activity; he had a change in heart first. This Christmas, let us be submissive to God’s Holy Spirit working in our hearts, as He uses sound Bible doctrine to manifest in our behavior our identity in Christ, that we be not Scrooges.

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing #5

Sunday, December 7, 2025

“For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:14-17 KJV).

The final verse of the classic Christmas carol highlights today’s Scripture.

“Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp Thine image in its place:
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in Thy love.
Let us Thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the Life, the inner man:
O, to all Thyself impart,
Formed in each believing heart.
Hark! The herald angels sing,
Glory to the newborn King!”

Religion has done an excellent job (wrongly) teaching us that God likes to rehabilitate humans—that He wants to make us quit doing certain things (“fleshly”) and make us start doing other things (“churchy”). What a very shallow, and actually a false, perception. God wants to do much more than what we could ever do by ourselves.

For good works to reign in our lives, God has to kill us! As sinners, in Adam, we are dead in our trespasses and sins, no life in ourselves (see today’s Scripture). Nothing we can do in our own strength will ever change our (sinful) nature in Adam. However, God offers us death to Adam and a new identity through Christ at Calvary. When we trust that Jesus Christ died for our sins, in God’s mind, we died to sin, too. Christ did not simply die for us but as us. Romans chapters 5 through 8 describe the victory is in Christ, not in Adam or in ourselves. Success is by the power of the Holy Ghost working with the grace doctrines we study and believe, not in our struggles to do right. And so, “Christ [is] formed in [us]” (Galatians 4:19).

Something about which the angels cannot sing, but we can, should, and do! 🙂