Grace Walk Experience - Part 1 — Steve McVey

Dr. Steve McVeigh is our guest. We're going to be talking about an area of grace today, I think. Steve, you've got a new book called The Grace Walk Experience. So what area are we going to talk about in the program today?

Improving Behavior Cannot Produce Christian Victory

There are eight truths that I wrote about in this book that transformed my life. Today we're going to talk about truth number one. Here it is. Improving your behavior will not give you victory in the Christian life.

I used to think it would, but it won't. So improving your behavior will not give you victory.

If you could suddenly start acting like the Apostle Paul, it wouldn't cause you to have victory, because victory doesn't come through changing your behavior.

I'm looking forward to this, Steve. Thank you very much. Hey, you're going to want to stay with us.

Thank you for joining us on this new day. Steve McVeigh has been here before, but not for quite a while. I'm really looking forward to hearing from him. He's really sort of a Mr. Grace, I would call him.

Mr. Grace. Mr. Incredible, what do you think?

Wow. I agree. I like Mr. Grace.

I do. We love Steve. When you walk in life, you discover you need grace. Yes. Mercy and grace are two of the qualities that I need from God above all else, but also from people. And I thank him for his grace.

These programs, Steve, I believe are going to be a real encouragement to you. They will help you in the next steps you're going to take. And that's great. Stay with us. I'm delighted that we've got Steve McVeigh, pardon me, Dr. Steve McVeigh, back with us here on It's New Day.

Steve has been with us over the years, probably over the last 10, 11 years. He has been with us as a guest at various times. And Steve, thanks for coming to spend some time with us.

Thanks, Willard. I always enjoy coming here and being with you.

Well, it's been good. And I'm just realizing I've got one of your books with me, and I should have had a whole raft of them here to show. Because you are an author. Yes, I enjoy writing. That's right.

See, I don't. I don't enjoy writing. But anyway, that doesn't mean I don't write. I just don't enjoy writing.

Well, you enjoy talking so much you don't have time to write. Is that it?

Don't tell everybody. Nobody would know that. But anyway, the book we're talking about this week, and you'll be with us for a number of days, is The Grace Walk Experience. And it ties into a book you've called, I think one of your first books was called Grace Walk, if I'm not mistaken.

That's right. My first book in 1995 was published. It was Grace Walk. And it's a book that teaches the foundational truths of the believer's identity in Christ and how to walk in grace. And The Grace Walk Experience, now 11 years later, is an expansion and an extension of all the books that I have written since Grace Walk.

Are all your books about grace? They're not all about grace, but they're all written from grace. You see, here's the thing that we fail to understand in the modern church. Sometimes we get the idea that grace is one of the topics of the Bible.

No, grace is the all-consuming topic of the Bible. I go to churches sometimes and a pastor will say, you know, this year we're going to focus on grace in our church. And I always think, well, what are you focusing on the rest of the time?

See, they see it like a pie, and grace is one slice of the pie, among many other important things. But I don't see it that way. I see it like instead of grace being a slice of the pie, if you lift the pie up and look, there's the crust, and that crust holds everything else, all the filling.

It holds it all. And that's the way grace is. Grace holds everything else.

So the grace of God is a fundamental element about how God does function everything?

The grace of God is everything because the grace of God is personified in Jesus Christ. And so Jesus Christ is life. That's the message of grace. Jesus Christ is the life of our church, of our families, of our careers, of our hobbies.

You see what I'm saying? He permeates it all. And so I've written these books, as I say, from a grace perspective, showing how that Christ is all in all. He's everything in our life.

Well, it's good that we talk about this because, see, if somebody's coming along like me, and I'd say, but God is love, or can I not separate God's love from grace? Where does that love flow from? It flows from out of His grace.

That's right. God is love. And it is because, as you say, the love and grace are Siamese twins. The love of God and the grace of God. I always say that the message I teach is the unconditional love and unending grace of God.

You can't separate the two. God's grace is manifested in the fact through Jesus that He adores us so much that in eternity past, He said, I'll die if I don't have you, and I'd rather die than live without you.

And He did. Not because He needs us, but because He wants us. He said, I'll die if I have to spend eternity with you.

In order to have you restored for eternity, I will die for you.

It's not that God needed us to be fulfilled or complete in Himself. He doesn't need us. Acts 17 says neither is He served by human hands as though He needed anything. But the wonderful thing is that God wants us.

And I wrote Grace Walk in 1995 to explain the believer's identity in Christ and what it means to walk in grace. But I wrote the Grace Walk experience. And the key word here is experience. Because I wanted folks to see that this is not just a theology.

It's not just a doctrine. But it is a living truth in Jesus Christ that will transform our lives when we understand how to walk in grace. This book, the Grace Walk experience, consists of eight truths that totally transformed my life.

And I've been a Christian 29 years before God began to teach me these things. I had been a pastor for 17 years before I began to learn the things that I wrote about in this book. Eight truths that absolutely transformed me.

And that's what we're going to talk about, some of those truths.

Okay, so we'll be getting into that during this time. The process of that transformation or how these truths are so critical.

Yeah, and understand when we say these truths, that's important right here at the beginning of this series of programs. It's important for me to say that these eight truths I'm talking about are not like eight secret keys to unlocking your victory in your Christian life.

It's not like some secret key. It's not like some steps you take. These eight truths, understand, are all aspects of the expression of the life of Christ who is in us, through us. All these truths, Jesus is the truth.

So all these eight truths that we'll talk about this week are really different aspects and facets of how we live out of our true identity in Christ. Does that make sense?

No, no, no. Because often we talk about the seven steps to something, or the five steps or something. I'll get this step down, then I'll get the next one, and so on. What you're talking about is saying, it's a matter of my heart understanding and knowing Jesus.

That's right, and knowing who I am in Him. And knowing who I am. And that's a critical part. That's the key to me. Because if you ask the person in the average church, do you believe God loves you? They'll say, sure.

And what they're not saying is, He's God. That goes with the job description.

Of course He loves me. I could be living an awful life, but God loves me, and I know that's who He is.

And that part is true. But the reality is, what we don't understand in the modern church is what it means to say that we are one with Christ. First Corinthians 6 .17 says, He who joins himself together to the Lord is one spirit with Him.

Union with Christ and the Believer's Identity

What does that mean, we're one with Christ? Well, that's what this Grace Walk experience is about. It outlines eight aspects of what it means to be in union with Jesus Christ. And union is a key word.

Here's the thing, Willard, that I didn't understand for 29 years after I became a Christian. Jesus is not in my life. He's not in my life. To say that He is in my life still leaves me as a distinct entity.

No, Christ is my life. Now, I don't mean I'm Jesus, but He is my life. He came into me and transformed me and gave me a new nature.

But you're going to have to spend time with us so we get this. Because you say, yeah, but then I suddenly say, but what does that look like? What does that mean, or why is that difference so huge? I mean, it seems huge, but I don't always understand.

So we're kept from understanding some things sometimes that are true in our lives. That's right.

Let me give you one example of why it's important to understand Christ is my life as opposed to Christ is in my life.

When I was a little child, my mama, my mother, and my Sunday school teachers, I remember because at the age of five I asked Jesus to come into my heart. That's how I understood it. Jesus, you come and live in my heart.

To me, I was taking Him into somehow the one who created the universe or was part of the creation universe. He and His Father and the Spirit, the three in one, made the universe. But somehow He comes and lives in my heart.

And there's a truth to that, isn't there?

Yeah, I'm not going to nitpick that expression. I've heard those words used. I've used them. I'm not going to nitpick that expression as long as you understand what it means. But what does it mean? You see, that's the issue.

Here's the key. To say Christ comes into my life, or at least I'm assuming heart and life is synonymous in the way you're using it. Christ comes into my life. Okay. The underlying danger, if we don't understand the full truth, is that I say, okay, Jesus is in my life.

And then that leads to things like, but you need to make Him number one in your life. I know you probably grew up hearing that. Oh, I've heard that one. I used to teach that. You need to make Him number one in your life.

Okay, well then here's the question. What's number two? If Jesus is number one, what's number two? What's number three? What's number four? No, Jesus Christ will not be denigrated by being put on a list of things in your life.

The truth is, Paul said, I've been crucified with Christ and I no longer live. The only life we have now is Jesus Christ. He said, but the life that I now live in this physical body, I live by the faith of the Son of God.

Later in the Bible, the Bible says in the New Testament, when Christ who is our life shall appear. Right. I think it's in the book of Acts. It says, in Him we live and move and exist. So to say that Christ came into my life, again, I'm not trying to be nitpicky about words, but words mean something.

And we need to understand what we're saying. To say that Christ came into my life, if by that you mean He came into my life and took the person that I was and crucified that old person with Him on the cross.

And we'll talk about that. Truth number five, we'll get to that later in the week. But if we mean He took the person I was, crucified that person, and gave me a brand new life in the place of that which I had, and the new life He gave me is His life.

Then you'd be right. Then you'd be right to say Christ came into my life, took it, killed it, and started over and gave me a brand new life, which is His life. So now He's not just in my life. It's not like, oh, Jesus is in my life and I need to make Him number one.

No, Christ is my life. In Him we live and move and exist. He lives through us for me to live as Christ. And it changes our perspective because now my responsibility is just to trust and rest in Him. And it is His responsibility both to will and to do His good pleasure.

Which Philippians says He does.

That's what he, I think it says there in chapter two somewhere. That's right. That's why I say that. It's up to Him.

We don't live for Him anymore. We don't live for Jesus Christ. No, and again, I'm not trying to nitpick words, but you see.

But some of those words actually bring separation from the very thing that God is wanting to work into us.

Exactly. We need to think about what we're saying and what it means and to say, well, we live for Jesus Christ. No, you don't. You're never called to live for Christ. You know the message of the New Testament.

It's not for Christ. It's in Christ. And those two prepositions make a world of difference. Because to live for Christ.

In fact, this really is the issue of the whole week, isn't it? We're getting down to a very core issue of this thing. This is your book.

Grace as Divine Enablement Rather Than Human Effort

Grace is the divine enablement by the life of Jesus Christ in us. For us to be all that we've been called to be and do all that we've been called to do. That is grace in essence. Now, I'm not talking about for unbelievers.

I'm talking about for those of us who are Christians. We're talking about someone who has made a decision to embrace Jesus. That's right.

Grace, let me say it again. Grace is the divine enablement by the life of Jesus Christ in us. For us to be all that we've been called to be and do all that we've been called to do. It's not me doing it for him.

It is his life coming into me and him living his life through me. So that I live a miraculous lifestyle that is only possible if you have a miraculous presence dwelling inside you. Now, in contrast to that, and here's one of the big differences between law and grace.

In fact, in session one, truth number one here, I should say, chapter one, I talk about that. One of the differences between law and grace is law says you try to do it for him. In grace, God says, no, I'll do it through you.

You see, law puts the burden on us. But grace leaves the burden where it rightfully belongs, and that's on him. What's our role? To rest in Jesus and let Jesus be Jesus in us and through us. Now, people say that sounds like passivity.

But I'll tell you, brother, resting is the most challenging thing I have in my life. Because my inclination, as is that of every person since the Garden of Eden, is to take over and try to do it myself.

That is the biggest challenge? Oh, absolutely. That's the biggest. As far as I know, that's my greatest vulnerability even until this very moment. And that is for me to try to take charge of my own life and live my life out of my own abilities.

That's the greatest vulnerability I can see in my life and in the lives of others. Jesus said, I like the way the message, you know, the translation of the Bible, says something like, Are you tired, worn out, burned out on religion?

Come to me and find rest. And he says, Get away with me and I'll teach you how to really live. Watch me and learn the natural rhythms of grace or the supernatural rhythms of grace. And that's it. Religion makes it so hard.

Willard, I'm going to say it right here on Christian television. And I was going to say, I hope you'll let me come back the rest of the week. But I know you will. I know I'm preaching to the choir with you.

But I hate religion. And let me clarify what I mean by that when I say I hate religion. Religion is man's attempt to jump through enough hoops and to do enough things that he thinks God requires of him that he'll finally be able to get the approving nod from God.

That's what religion is. It's us trying to do enough that we can gain God's approval. I hate that. Because grace is God saying, I love and accept you because, not because of what you have done or will do, but because of what my son Jesus Christ has done on the cross.

It's on that basis that I love and accept you. That's authentic Christianity. And religion blinds us from the truth of the cross.

And we're talking about religion. You could be talking about any form of religion. A lot of people that believe they're walking as Christians are still jumping through hoops.

Let me tell you, for a long time I was trapped in religion, and it was the Christian religion. Listen, and again, you may turn your TV off at this point, but I encourage you to stick with us and hear the whole line of thinking here.

But I want to tell you, the Christian religion is no better than any other religion. Now Christianity, oh, that's a different story. Christianity is wonderful. The Christian religion, I talked with a Hindu guy one time.

I was on a flight from Bangkok, Thailand to New Delhi, and I talked with a Hindu guy, and he said, you know the question people ask you all over the world once they know your name, if they want to know more, what do you do?

Yeah, yeah. And I said, I teach the Bible. He said, the Christian Bible? I said, yes. He said, I don't like religion. And I said, I don't either. Boy, I could see that guy's wheels turning in his head.

He sat there a minute, and he said, religion tries to control people. I said, man, are you ever right about that? I said, I grew up in the Christian religion. I said, it's as bad as any religion. I could see he couldn't compute.

He couldn't comprehend what I was saying. He said, religion has started a lot of wars. And I said, man, are you kidding? I said, I was a local church pastor for 21 years. I've been in some of those wars.

Not just the international ones. That's right, that's right. The war right there. Oh, man. And finally, this guy looked at me, and he said, what did you say you do? I said, I teach the Christian Bible.

I said, but you need to understand there's a difference between the Christian religion and Christianity. I said, the Christian religion is when a person takes the Bible, and they try to build their life around the teaching of the Bible, maybe like a Muslim would do with the Koran.

I said, but Christianity is when a person receives Jesus Christ by faith, and he finds his acceptance from God to be in Christ and Christ alone. And we talked about that for about an hour on that flight, and it was interesting.

Before we landed in New Delhi, this guy said to me, I'll never forget what he said. He said, let me see if I understand this. He said, the Christian religion is when you try to build your life around a list of rules and teachings found in the Holy Bible.

He said, but the Christian religion, listen to this, what this Hindu said, the Christian religion is when you absorb the life of Jesus Christ by faith into your consciousness, and from that day forward, you don't even live, but he lives his life.

Yeah, so the Christian faith, you mean. Christian faith. Christianity, yeah.

Rather than Christian religion. Yeah, Christianity, Christian faith. Yeah, the Christian religion is building it around rules. Right. But authentic Christian faith, he said, is when you absorb the life of Jesus Christ into your consciousness by faith, so that from that day forward, you don't live, but he lives his life.

Yeah, so he understood that. He got the concept. Oh, good grief. I thought this Hindu's got it better than a lot of folks back home that go to church every Sunday. Yeah. And I'm saying to you, and that's what this is about, how to experience the authentic Christian faith.

What I'm saying, Willard, is a lot of folks are trapped in religion, and I don't mean they're not Christians. Listen, I was a sincere Christian all those years, but I was trapped in faulty thinking.

Legalism, Condemnation, and Freedom in Grace

Okay, now what does that result in? Okay, if the faulty thinking is there, what does that kind of do? What is the result of it, rather than if you've got the one and you haven't comprehended the other?

Well, I'll tell you exactly what it does, and a lot of you watching this right now, you know exactly what I'm saying, and I know you have experienced this in your life, Willard, as I have. When we live with the mistaken notion that Christianity is about me, number one, trusting Jesus Christ and being saved by faith, and then, number two, spending the rest of my life trying my best to live for him, which is a false teaching.

When we believe that, what it does is puts us in a place where we will forever, for the rest of our lives, feel nothing but a sense of internal death and condemnation. Inadequacy. Inadequacy, because 2 Corinthians 3, verses 5 and 7 calls the law the ministry of death and the ministry of condemnation.

That's why I use those two words. When you live a legalistic life, and legalism is a system of living where we try to make progress, spiritual progress, or gain God's blessings based on what we do. When you live that life, it will always leave you feeling frustrated.

It will leave you saying, why can't I be a better Christian? It will leave you grading yourself and never feeling like you passed the test. That's what that will do, but understanding the truth of the grace walk experience and how to let Jesus Christ live his life through you, what that does is it frees us.

It frees us to take our eyes off ourselves and put our eyes first of all on him and then on others. It sets us free from that constant morbid self-introspection where we're always looking at ourselves.

This goes all the way back to the garden. First thing when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the first thing that happened was they began to stare at themselves and they saw they were naked, and they believed they were unpresentable.

So the awareness of your own inadequacy is probably the strongest feeling. If that dominates your thinking, you've got some wrong thinking going on.

Let me qualify that a little bit. I think we are always aware of our own inadequacy. Paul said in Corinthians that our inadequacy is not of ourselves. So yes, all through our lives, even as we experience the grace walk, we recognize our own inadequacy.

But what I'm saying is when we live on the legalistic side of the fence, we experience continuous self-condemnation about our inadequacy because no matter how hard we try, we can't seem to do enough.

Whereas on the grace side of the fence, when we're experiencing the grace walk, yes, we recognize our inadequacy, but that's okay because more importantly, we recognize his adequacy and that he is our life.

And we rest in him and we praise him and we know when I'm weak, then I'm strong. And we embrace our weakness and lay it in the foot of the cross. And when I'm poor, I'm rich.

That's right. Because what I am in Jesus is what I really am. That's right.

In fact, the first truth in this grace walk experience, the first week, the first session, I'm calling it session because let me say something I haven't said. This book is divided into eight weekly, it's 240 pages, but it's divided into eight truths and each truth is divided into five daily studies.

So we're talking about eight weeks of work here.

Well, it's eight weeks of inductive study where you can assimilate truths that will transform you. But week number one, I'm calling it week or chapter number one.

Can you see what the title is? It says improving your behavior will not give you victory in the Christian life.

Improving your behavior will not give you victory in the Christian life.

And most people think that's what I'm looking for. Okay, let's take a little break. We're going to come back, okay? We just got started. Boy, time flies. It does. Okay, we'll be right back right after this.

We're back with Dr. Steve McVeigh. And I do call you Steve more than I call you Dr. Ivan.

I only have to be a doctor if you feel spiritually sick today, but you're not. I know you, so you're good. You're just Steve. You're my brother. I tell folks I got a doctorate degree back then because I served as pastor of so many sick churches.

That's a tough, man, it's a real challenge. But anyway, okay, let's get back to this. So we're in the very foundational, I mean, it's our Christian life. Our Christian life foundationally is, where does this, you just talked about this difference coming in, where right from the very beginning Adam and Eve were self-conscious or condemned or felt inadequate and saw themselves that way.

Is that a beginning thing?

Is that where this whole thing starts? Absolutely. Day three in the Grace Walk experience, first truth, day three, talks about the difference between law and grace. And I go back to the Garden of Eden in day three here and talk about the two trees.

And I call one the trying tree and the other the trusting tree. Now remember in the Garden of Eden there were two trees. There was the tree of life. Now that tree represents Jesus. We know he is life.

That's the trusting tree. But then I call the other one the trying tree because that was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That tree gave people an understanding of right and wrong. Now what did God say about that tree?

Did he say you need to know right from wrong so eat from the tree? What did he say? He said you don't even need that tree. Now listen, see if this won't rock the world of some of you who are watching this.

In the beginning that tree that gave knowledge of right and wrong, God didn't say eat from it so you'll be sure to know right from wrong. God said don't eat from it because in the day that you eat from it you'll surely die.

Because the issue in the garden was not that they needed to know what was right and what was wrong. The issue in the garden was that they just needed to continue to live out of the union they had with God.

And as they lived out of that union would their behavior be right or wrong? No. It wouldn't be either Willard because right and wrong are the boundaries of morality. And they didn't live morally.

They lived miraculously. Now this is so fundamental. Steve, as much as I know this, my mind still struggles when you say that.

It's got to be right and not wrong. That's right. What's the number one question people are asking in church all the time? Would it be right or wrong for me to do this? I know that. And the answer is you're asking the wrong question.

The response is this. The response would it be right or wrong for me to do this? Here's your answer. Let Jesus Christ live through you. There's the answer. Because, listen, you don't even have to be a Christian to do the right thing.

An unbeliever can choose right over wrong.

I had a real, it's really true. I had a major discussion, it was quite a number of years ago, with a young lady who is an atheist. And we talked about this. And she said one of the problems you've got is that you think all atheists are immoral.

And she says a lot of atheists live more moral lives than people that are Christians. And you know what? I agree with her. I couldn't argue with her. I agree. I suddenly realized we've been asking the wrong question.

That's right. We've been going the wrong way on this thing. That's right.

The key in answering her objection is this. I would have to say to her, you're right. Yeah. I'm sorry to say, but the modern church, generally speaking, you've judged it fairly. But the reality is, don't judge Jesus by a lot of what you see in the modern church world.

Because the reality is, it's not about moral or immoral living. That's not the issue.

That's not the issue. And I think that's our challenge. But go ahead. Keep going here, Steve.

I don't want to get in the way of this. Well, it's not about morality. Again, I say we don't have to have Christ living inside us to live morally. That lady made a good point. Exactly. But you do have to have Jesus Christ living in you to live miraculously.

To live a supernatural life, you need Jesus. That's right. You cannot live supernaturally without God living his life through you.

And here's the key. Again, this first truth we're talking about, improving your behavior would not cause you to have victory in the Christian life. Here's the key. Even if you could change your behavior from wrong to right, you would still be frustrated.

Now, some that are watching this program can relate to where I've been. I was a local church pastor for almost 21 years until I left in 1994 to begin Grace Walk Ministries. But I did all the right things.

I read my Bible every day. I went to church. I even preached the sermon when I got there. I witnessed to unbelievers. I gave my money. I prayed. I did all the things. My behavior was right. But in my heart of hearts, I still felt like there was something missing.

I remember thinking there's got to be more to the Christian life than this. My behavior was not only moral. My behavior was religious. But what coming to understand the truths I wrote about and the Grace Walk experience has done for me is it's caused me to recognize that I was trying to find.

My hunger was legitimate. My search was real. But I was trying to satisfy that thirst through morality and religion. And I realize now that we're not called to morality. We're called to miraculous living.

We're called to a lifestyle that transcends right and wrong. We're called to a life where Jesus lives through us. I was not being called to religion. I was being called to righteousness. And all my religious efforts to step up my activity and pray more, give more, preach more, you know, read the Bible more, et cetera, it was like drinking water out of the ocean.

It only made me thirstier. It didn't satisfy me. But I'm telling you, I travel all over the world sharing this, and you know it, and you watching at home know it. You go to church next Sunday, and in the typical church, the answer for the frustrated Christian that they're going to hear is, well, you just need to read the Bible more, pray more, you know, witness more.

Do the right things. Do the right things. And we've done that, and we've done it, and we've done it, and we've done it. And the bottom line is, I'm here to say right on national TV, it won't work. The only thing that's going to satisfy that thirst is Jesus and understanding who he is and who we are in him.

But a lot of people, when you say that, there's going to be a whole, it triggers in us, in so many of us, okay, I'll do the right thing then. I'm just telling you, see, it's just like, you know, I'm going to get to know Jesus.

Well, then suddenly I'm thinking, well, that means I'm going to read the Bible more. Then I'm going to pray more. And you know, that is not, that's not the answer. I mean, I'm not saying it's wrong to do, all of those things can.

In fact, if you are living a supernatural life, you probably, well, you may end up praying more one day or you may end up.

Those things become the natural overflow of the excitement we have about sharing union with Christ. Those things, of course, please, I don't want anybody to think we're minimizing the value of Bible reading and prayer and church.

I'm not doing that. But I'm saying we've got the cart before the horse. In the modern church, we think if we'll do all those right things and do them consistently enough and zealously enough that we're going to come to a place of experiencing victory.

And again, right back to this first truth, which is what we're talking about today. Improving your behavior would not give you victory in the Christian life. We think if we could do it well enough, long enough, you know, strong enough, then we're going to experience victory.

No, we will not. Now, when we come to understand our identity in Christ, as I teach it in this book, and who we are in him and who he is in us. Once we understand that, then all of the doing of the Christian life will be the natural or I should say supernatural overflow of that love relationship that we have.