All Christians Have Been Graced-Grafted And Gifted By God Series

The famous Russian novelist, Feyador Dovstevsky, told of the events of his life. He told about when he was arrested by the Czar of Russia and was sentenced to die. The Czar was known for playing bizarre psychological tricks on people he felt had rebelled against him.

In Dostevsky’s case, the Czar had him marched out in front of a firing squad and blindfolded. This was one of the Czar’s favorite tricks and he’d done it to many others as well. Dostevsky related that the Czar had this done to him on several occasions.

When he stood blindfolded in front of the firing squad, he would hear the triggers click, then the guns fire….but no bullet hit him. Either the guns fired blanks or they fired over his head. However, he said that going through the process of preparing to die—each time believing he would die—had a transforming effect on him.

He talked about waking up each morning with the full assurance that this would be his last day of life. Each meal was his last…and it tasted so good—every breath of air he took was precious to him—every face he saw, he studied with great intensity.

Suddenly, every experience was etched in his mind!

Each time he was marched through the courtyard, into the heat of the sun, he was able to appreciate the sun so much. He said, “I was seeing the world in a way I had never seen it before. I was fully alive for the first time in my life!”

If we remember what it’s like to be dead in sin, maybe we will be more able to feel how great it is to be alive in Christ, and we will gladly and willingly present ourselves as a living sacrifice to God.

This means more than being involved—it means TOTALITY. There’s a difference between involvement and commitment. One person described it by telling us to look at our breakfast plate. When we see eggs and bacon on that plate, you know that the chicken was involved, BUT the pig was committed!

Grafted.

Not only has God graced us with a new life in Christ Jesus, but when we obey the gospel, we are grafted into the body of Christ—the Church. The Church is Christ’s living body, and we become part of a living organism—not a lifeless, dead organization.

Many fruit trees today are grown from grafts, and the reason why is because of the superiority of the fruit. When a branch from a high-yielding variety is grafted into the root-stock of a particularly hardy variety, the resultant fruit tree become the best of both worlds.

The trees are grafted together and the branches become a living part of a hardy tree, which produces a high-yield fruit. When God grafts us into the body of Christ, we become a part of a hardy, living organism that is designed to produce! In Romans, chapter 12, Paul says we are “all one body in Christ…”

Romans 12:3-5

---3---“…for through the grace given to me, I say to every man among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.

---4---For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function,