Two Sides to Receiving from God
Melanie Stone

Melanie Stone is married to Jerry Stone, and together they team up to connect churches through Link Churches, share resources through Grow Churches, and pastor Freedom House Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. She also heads up “Leading Ladies,” an initiative to connect women who serve in leadership positions in ministry and in business. Melanie is a Jesus-follower, a wife, mother, grandmother, author, and teacher. Her interests include traveling, day-trip adventures, new recipes, the arts, and anything creative.

Melanie’s book “Open” and other resources are available at www.growchurches.com. If you would like more information about ministries and resources, please send us a message through our contact page. There are two sides to receiving from God. In order to receive something, someone first has to give it. Therefore, there is a giving side, and there is a receiving side. Consider Ephesians 2:8-9,

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

I see the giving side as the grace side, and the receiving side as the faith side. One extraordinary concept about life and living is that God has chosen for us to experience life together. When it comes to our salvation, the grace side is the God side. The faith side is our side. God has chosen not to move on His own; He has chosen to move together with us. He has a part, and we have a part.

The Grace Side

On the grace side, God has already made the way for us to know Him and to receive from Him through what Christ accomplished at the cross. Not only has grace completely paid for our salvation in full, but God also continues to move in grace to provide what we need day-by-day.

The Faith Side

Faith is our part. Faith is not only our choice to believe in God, because even demons believe God exists and wants to bless, but faith is also our choice to respond to God’s love with a trusting surrender to His Lordship. Faith is an absolute reliance on God that results in obedience. When we obey God, we are putting action to our submission to Him. It’s not about works, but it’s about the response of obedience. Considering faith, not only have we come into position of surrender to Christ’s Lordship and experienced the new birth; but we also, by faith, continually submit to His loving authority in the situations we face everyday.

Receiving from God is not just about His grace, and receiving from God is not just about our faith; receiving from God is about His grace and our faith working together. His grace is His open heart to give, and faith is our open heart to receive. The grace and faith principle is seen throughout scripture and applies not only to our eternal salvation for the future, but also to the saving, or making whole, of all areas of our life. If you have received salvation, then you are saved, but do not fail to understand that you are also in a process of salvation, in the senses of being restored and strengthened with each new day.

II Corinthians 4:16 “…even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.”

Grace and Faith Work Together

God’s grace and our faith work together. We’re in a relationship, a union, with God. In this relationship, God gives to us, and we can give back to Him. We receive from God, and God can receive from us. However, when it comes to our need, God is the answer.

Living Life to the Fullest

God wants each of us to live our life to the fullest, open to love, and free from any weights. The way to get the most out of life is to live it as close in relationship with God that we can, by grace, through faith. God wants us to receive a position of being saved, and then He wants us to live in His salvation everyday. He wants us to grow in knowing Him, and from His presence, we find the source of all that makes us whole in spirit, soul, and body.

Just like any other relationship, when we give ourselves to knowing God, the relationship can grow, get stronger, open wider, and flourish. If we neglect our relationship with God, it can become stagnant, cold, closed, and lifeless. God wants us to experience Him and the life He offers.

Not only can we know God, but we can also mature in our relationship Him. As we grow spiritually and in relationship with our Father, we can increase our capacity to receive. We can also become more effective in working together with the Holy Spirit in our ministry to others. We don’t have to wait until we get to heaven to know God more fully.

There is no greater fulfillment a human being can have than to enter into an interactive relationship with God while encountering His tangible presence. Think about it. God, the Creator of everything and everyone, is in a close relationship with you. You are fully satisfied in being one with your Maker. Completed in every sense of wholeness. Confident of the person you are, where you came from, and where you are going. The more you mature, the more wonders of God’s person are unfolded for your discovery. The more you grow, the more you marvel at the swelling beauty of His grace and truth. The more you develop, the more rooted and established you become in His love. Nothing can move you from the place God has given you in Christ.

Not only do you experience being enveloped by the majesty of His power and love, but you also encounter the deluge of His anointing flowing through you, knowing God is supernaturally accomplishing His miraculous purpose together with you. Whatever age you are, with each new day comes a new opportunity for God to take you higher in Him.

This is one of my favorite scriptures:

Philippians 3:10-11 (Amplified version) “(10) [For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which is exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope] (11) that if possible I may attain to the [spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body].”

We can increase in our understanding of our Father and in our experience with His glory. I believe we can go higher in levels of anointing. Take a look at this verse in the Amplified version:

II Corinthians 3:18 “And all of us, as with unveiled face, [because we] continued to behold [in the Word of God] as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another; [for this comes] from the Lord [Who is] the Spirit.”

We can expand our capacity to receive from God for the purpose of a growing relationship with Him and to become more effective in working together with the Holy Spirit as a conduit of God’s supernatural power. We also can work together with God to see breakthroughs from barriers to His anointing, opening our hearts wider to receive all He has to give. You can receive from God in a greater measure. Your capacity to receive from God can open wider to all that God has for you.

Melanie’s book “Open” and other resources are available at www.growchurches.com. If you would like more information about ministries and resources, please send us a message through our contact page.