THE COMBAT MANUAL

Salvation, Faith & Grace

The Causes Beneath the Effects — and Why They Are Offensive Weapons

Taught by John Lenhart  |  flowcess.com

READING ASSIGNMENT This lesson draws directly from Chapters 1 through 5 of Modeling God by John Lenhart, which cover the nature of God and salvation in depth. If you have not yet read those chapters, do so alongside this lesson. The full argument — including the Greek word studies and the philosophical framework — is developed there at length.

Why Effects Are Not Enough

Most of what Christians are taught about God and salvation is a description of effects. God makes me feel peaceful. Salvation gives me hope. Jesus changed my life. Prayer helps me through hard times. These things may all be true. But they are not causes — and without the causes, you cannot reliably reproduce the effects, you cannot teach others how to access them, and you cannot defend the reality of what you are describing to someone who does not already believe.

I illustrate this with what I call the Henderson 4000. Imagine I stood in front of a group and said: you all need to buy a Henderson 4000. It has made my life so much more efficient. I am healthier. I am happier. My friendships are better. And then when someone asks what it is, I say: it is about this big. Comes in different colors. I keep doing that — describing effects, more and more enthusiastically — without ever telling anyone what the thing actually is or how it actually works.

Someone would eventually say: this doesn’t exist. And if I asked why they thought that, the answer would be: because you cannot describe it. You are only giving effects. Then I would ask: but if I kept piling on more and more effects, would you be more likely to believe in it? No. So why do people come to believe in God through hearing effects alone? Because of emotion. If I connect with you emotionally while describing the effects, you will believe me. And anything built on emotion alone is one hard season away from collapse.

The cause-based approach changes everything. When you know what salvation actually is — what faith actually means, what grace actually does, what the mechanism is — it becomes something you can grow in deliberately. You can apply it. You can teach it. You can use it offensively rather than just holding onto it for dear life when things get hard.

You cannot grow in something you cannot define. You cannot defend something you can only feel. The causes of salvation are not just theological trivia — they are the controls.

The Gospel Has Three Parts — and They Are Not All the Same Thing

If someone asks you what the gospel is, go to 1 Corinthians 15:3-4. Paul says he delivered what he received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. Three events. Three distinct applications. And most people conflate them all into one.

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 15:3-4 (KJV)

The three events map to three different things. Christ died applies to salvation. Christ was buried applies to reward — what you carry forward from the old life. Christ rose again applies to eternal life — not just living forever, but the capacity to grow and become and prepare for all of eternity. Salvation and eternal life are not the same thing. Most people assume they are, which is one reason the conversation about salvation gets muddled so quickly.

THE GOSPEL EVENT	WHAT IT IS	WHAT IT APPLIES TO	WHAT IT PRODUCES
Christ died	The substitutionary death — punishment absorbed on our behalf	Salvation (soteria) — avoidance of the punishment we deserve	Justification — declared righteous, guilt cleared
Christ was buried	The burial — the old life sealed away, the old man put in the ground	Reward — what we carry forward from the old life into the new	Sanctification — the ongoing process of becoming
Christ rose again	The resurrection — the proof that death has been defeated and life is real	Eternal life — the capacity to grow, prepare, and become for all of eternity	Glorification — what we will be at the end of the process

Salvation specifically — soteria in Greek, Strong’s G4991 — means avoidance of punishment. Not eternal life. Not transformation. Not necessarily being filled with joy and peace and a new personality. Simply this: the punishment you deserved has been absorbed by someone else, and you are no longer subject to it. That is what salvation is. It is a legal term. It is a relief of sentence. And it is only the first of three.

This matters enormously in the conversation about whether you can lose your salvation. I have worked with a pastor who wrote a book called Are You Really Saved? And his point — which I think is exactly right — is that the entire argument over whether you can lose salvation is a distraction. It is the enemy’s favorite topic for Christians to fight about. The real question, the one nobody is asking, is: how do you know if you are saved in the first place?

Watch what happens when you press on this. Is Brother So-and-so saved? Yes, absolutely. Then he kills someone just before he dies. Well, he was never really saved. So we are waiting until the end of people’s lives to confirm their salvation? That means we have no real-time measure for it at all. And if there is no measure, then the whole conversation is speculation dressed as theology.

There is a measure. It is in the definitions of faith and grace. Which means we need to get those definitions right.

Faith: What It Actually Is

The definition that most people operate from — consciously or not — is that faith means belief in the impossible. The more impossible something is, the more faith it takes to believe it. The less sense something makes, the greater the faith required. This is how people get money out of you in God’s name. Send us this offering. Prove your faith. It seems impossible? Good. That means you really have to trust.

That is not what the Bible says faith is. Go to Hebrews 11:1.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. — Hebrews 11:1 (KJV)

Faith is evidence-based. It is a belief in something you cannot directly observe — either because it is invisible, like electricity or gravity, or because it has not happened yet, like the sun rising tomorrow. You believe both of those things. You would stake your life on them. But neither of them can be touched or tasted or seen in the moment you hold them. That is what faith describes.

Five verses later in the same chapter, the author gives the application: ‘He that cometh to God must believe that He is — and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.’ Believe that He exists, even though He cannot be seen. Believe that He rewards seeking, even though the reward has not yet arrived. The definition in verse 1 and the application in verse 6 are the same structure. The author confirms his own definition.

TWO KINDS OF FAITH — AND WHY THE DIFFERENCE MATTERS

There are two ways faith grows, and they are not equal. The first is experiential faith — the natural pattern recognition that the brain performs when it sees something happen twice and anticipates it will happen a third time. You have seen the sun rise every day of your life. Your brain has filed that as given. That is experiential faith, and it builds without effort.

The second is understanding faith — knowing the reason why. Not just that the sun will rise, but understanding orbital mechanics, earth’s rotation, the physics of light. Understanding faith is not disrupted when the pattern breaks, because you understand the cause rather than just having observed the effect.

Here is the problem. The disciples spent three years with Jesus. They saw miracle after miracle. They had extraordinary levels of experiential faith. He died. And they locked themselves in a room and lost all of it — because it was all experiential, and one catastrophic event shattered the pattern.

That is what happens to Christians who come to God hot and passionate and full of experience, and then fade. The experience was real. But it never got converted into understanding. When the Holy Spirit went quiet, when the circumstances got hard, when the pattern broke, there was nothing underneath to hold it.

Experiential faith is easy to gain and gone in a heartbeat. Understanding faith survives the thing that destroys experience — because it is built on causes, not effects.

The application for this course: do not just have experiences with God. Convert them. Ask why. Get into His Word not just for inspiration but for understanding. Let your council meetings become the place where experiential faith is interrogated and reinforced with understanding. That is how you build something that lasts.

Grace: What It Actually Is

The most common definition of grace in the evangelical world is unmerited favor — God’s pardon extended to people who do not deserve it. The origin of that definition is Martin Luther. And it is not wrong as a description of what happens at salvation. But it is not what the Greek word actually means, and the difference has massive practical consequences.

The Greek word is charis. Strong’s G5845. The definition: the divine influence upon the heart and its reflection in the life. That is not pardon. That is not a one-time transaction at the moment of belief. That is an ongoing, active, flowing process — God’s influence entering your heart and coming out through your actions. Like electricity through a wire. Like water through a pipe. You are the conduit. God is the source. Grace is what is flowing.

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. — Ephesians 2:8-9 (KJV)

When grace means unmerited favor, the logical implication of growing in grace is sinning more — more sin produces more pardon, more grace abounds. Paul addresses this exact argument in Romans 6:1-2. The fact that he had to address it means people were already making that argument in the first century, which means the wrong definition was already circulating. And it is still circulating. The wrong definition leads logically to the wrong conclusion.

When grace means divine influence flowing through you, growing in grace means letting more of God flow through more of your life. Less self-initiation. More divine influence. More cooperation with what God is already doing rather than initiating what you want and asking God to bless it.

THE MEDICINE ANALOGY

A pastor’s son once described it this way to me, and I have used it ever since. He said: I am sick. I have sin. I am given a pill — that is the medicine, that is grace. I take the pill. The pill cures me. Now, what would it sound like if I said, “I cured myself”? Wrong. The pill cured me.

But here is where it gets interesting. There is a difference between being given a pill and taking it. You have a responsibility in that process. The pill does not jump into your mouth. God does not force the influence through you. You choose to take it. You choose to open yourself to what He is doing and let it out through your actions.

This is where the two great errors get made. Calvinists say God gets all the credit and has all the responsibility — the pill administers itself. Humanists say we get all the credit and have all the responsibility — we manufactured the pill ourselves. The Bible says something more precise than both: God gets all the credit. It is His righteousness flowing through us. And we have the responsibility to take the pill. Both things are true simultaneously.

CREDIT AND RESPONSIBILITY God gets all the credit — salvation is His righteousness, His influence, His action. Not ours.  We have the responsibility — to rest, to receive, to let His influence flow out. To take the pill.  These are not in conflict. Credit and responsibility are two separate things. Confusing them is what produces both passive Christianity (God does everything, I just wait) and works-based Christianity (I do everything, God approves). Neither is the mechanism.

Rest: The Mechanism That Connects Everything

There is one more concept that pulls faith and grace and salvation together into a single coherent mechanism, and it is the one that most people never connect to salvation at all. It is rest.

Here is the definition: rest is ceasing from the occupation of being a first cause. In Genesis 1 and 2, God was a first cause for six days. Let there be light. Why? What caused Him to say that? We do not know. That is the definition of a first cause — no prior cause, no reason outside itself. God acted on His own initiation.

Then on the seventh day, He rested. And everything God did after the seventh day, we have a reason for — because He acted in response to something. He was no longer a first cause. He was a responder.

For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. — Hebrews 4:10-11 (KJV)

Notice: entering into rest is a requirement for getting to heaven. And entering into rest means ceasing from your own works as first cause — the same thing God did on day seven. This is not a metaphor for laziness or passivity. It is a description of the mechanism by which grace operates: you stop initiating from yourself, and you start letting God initiate through you.

Look at the implications. The enemy cannot unilaterally come into this world and act. He has to do it through people — people who choose to be the conduit for his influence. God works the same way. He does not unilaterally impose Himself on the physical world. He needs people who have chosen to let Him flow through them. That is what this entire course is about. Every lesson, every piece of equipment, every discipline in both the War Journal and the Combat Manual is ultimately aimed at one thing: growing in faith and grace so that more of God can operate through you in the world.

REST AND GRACE ARE THE SAME THING Grace (charis) = God’s divine influence flowing through you and out of your actions.  Rest (Hebrews 4) = ceasing from the occupation of being a first cause.  They are two descriptions of the same state. When you are resting, God’s influence can flow through you. When you are being your own first cause, it cannot. Salvation is not just a legal event — it is an invitation into a mode of being.

What Sin Actually Is

With the definitions of faith and grace now clear, the definition of sin also becomes clearer — and more personal than most people expect.

And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin. — Romans 14:23 (KJV)

Whatever is not of faith is sin. Not whatever is on a list of prohibited behaviors. Not whatever society currently considers immoral. Whatever is not of faith — for you, at your current level of understanding — is sin for you. This makes sin a uniqueness-dependent concept.

I sometimes take out a quarter in front of a group and flip it, and ask: did I sin? The question is unanswerable without knowing whether I flipped it in faith. Sin is not missing a mark in the sense of either hitting or missing — as though every action you take is either perfectly in God’s will or a failure. Much of the time you are not even shooting. You are just existing, going through your day, not consciously in faith or out of it.

The real measure of sin — the only one that is right and just — is whether you are growing in faith and grace. Not whether you achieved some threshold of behavior, but whether the trajectory is upward. Are you trusting God more this month than last? Are you letting His influence direct more of your actions? That is the measure.

This is also why I push back on the reading-the-Bible-as-quantity approach. Someone commits to reading three chapters a day. By day four they are reading one. By week two, a few verses. By week three, nothing, and they feel like a failure. I tell people: read one verse a day. Habitually. Then maybe two. Then three. It is not how much Bible you read. God is measuring growth. Are you growing? Start slow and build the habit of growing. That habit — sustained, directional, upward — is what grace through faith actually looks like in daily life.

The Three Causes of Salvation

People talk a great deal about the sinner’s prayer. And some people pray it three times, five times, twelve times and still do not feel saved. The reason is that they are praying the effects rather than the causes. The words of the sinner’s prayer describe what salvation looks like from the outside. The causes are what actually produce it. And the causes are three steps.

#	THE CAUSE	WHAT IT MEANS	WHAT IT IS NOT
1	My plan is bad	Honest acknowledgment that your attempts at being the first cause of your own life have not produced what you hoped. Not self-hatred — accurate self-assessment.	It is not the emotional guilt trip of “I am the worst sinner who ever lived.” That is a performance, not a cause. The cause is simple recognition: my plan is not working.
2	I no longer want to do my plan	A genuine decision to cease being a first cause — to stop initiating life from your own agenda. This is the rest of Hebrews 4: ceasing from the occupation of being a first cause.	It is not suppressing your personality or desires. It is redirecting what initiates your actions — from yourself to God. Your uniqueness is still fully expressed. The source changes.
3	I want to let God do His plan through me	Actively choosing to receive God’s influence through grace and let it flow out through your actions. This is what “letting Jesus into your heart” means in concrete terms.	It is not passive. You have a responsibility — to take the pill, to let the influence out, to cooperate with what God initiates. God gets the credit. You have the responsibility.

When you say “I am letting Jesus into my heart,” what you actually mean — in concrete terms — is: I am letting God direct my actions. That is what it means for Jesus to be in your heart. Not an emotional sensation. Not a warm feeling in your chest. The seat of the will being reoriented — from self as first cause to God as first cause.

Abraham is the clearest example in all of Scripture. Paul quotes Genesis 15:6 in Romans 4: “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness.” Abraham had faith in God and let what God said direct his actions. God called that righteousness. Notice: Abraham was before the Law. The Law did not save anyone. It was a shadow, a teaching tool, pointing toward what saves — grace through faith, resting from being your own first cause, letting God’s influence flow.

That is what everyone in the Bible who was ever saved was doing. Jew under the Law, Christian under the Spirit — the mechanism is the same. Six days as first cause, one day letting God be first cause. Now, with the Spirit, it is not one day in seven. It is seven days in seven. The trajectory is total rest — total openness to God’s influence — and the whole of the Christian life is the process of getting there.

ABRAHAM: THE MODEL — ROMANS 4:3-5 For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh, the reward is not reckoned as of grace, but as of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness.  Abraham is not the model because he was perfect. He is the model because his orientation was correct: he believed God and let that belief direct his actions. God credited that as righteousness. The mechanism has never changed.

⚔  WHAT ARE YOU MEASURING? Based on what you learned in this lesson: what has been your working definition of faith up to now? What has been your working definition of grace? Write both down honestly. Then write what you now understand them to mean. Where is the gap — and what changes if you close it? _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________

⚔  CAUSES VS. EFFECTS IN YOUR OWN LIFE Describe one area of your spiritual life where you have been operating on effects (feelings, experiences, results) without understanding the causes. What would it look like to convert that from experiential faith into understanding faith? What understanding do you still need? _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________

God gets all the credit. You have the responsibility. Both are true at once.

Next time: applying everything you have learned to the people in your life — and beginning to hear from God in your specific uniqueness.