Day 3; August 11, 2011
It seems that at the beginning of this one-year struggle, I am to understand grace and how to live it and offer it to the people around me. This morning as I walked through the barn at work I saw a book on the shelf in the office called What’s So Amazing About Grace? by Philip Yancey. I decided to sit down and read the1st chapter of the book after thoroughly enjoying the book Outrageous Love by Sheila Walsh a couple weeks before. In the book Yancey spoke about how grace was one of the greatest unspoiled words in the world.
It struck me as profound that in order to know Jesus I have to accept the grace he gives me. This concept was accentuated when I came home and had a deep talk about life, love, Christianity, fears, and joys with my wife. In our conversation Jesus pressed on my heart the fact that I had to accept grace to know His love. Without accepting Jesus’ grace, I cannot know Him.
Accepting our Lord’s grace requires me to let my past sins and failures go, to not punish myself for things I have failed miserably at, to not take back my forgiven burdens, and to allow Jesus’ love and grace flow over me freely and completely. I am need of learning to see myself how Jesus sees me and trust the pure image of myself that He reflects in His mirror before me.
In this world we are not quick to offer ourselves or others grace. This is especially true for me because I have a huge need for justice both in my life and in the world. Justice does not extend grace because the punishment you receive is exactly what you deserve. I have such trouble wrapping my head around the concept that I receive from Christ the exact opposite of what I deserve and that in Jesus it is good.
Do you struggle to accept grace for your past failures, sins, struggles, pains, abuses, addictions, etc? Will you allow Jesus to wipe your slate clean, free you from your past, and prepare you for a future of ministry of kingdom proportions? I don’t know about you but I struggled for the longest time with feeling as though my past excluded me from offering any kingdom influence in my life. With Jesus, that is not so. He creates a new creation in each of us and fills us with the power of the Holy Spirit to bear a light to a lost and dying world.
Will you stand up and find strength in this that offers you freedom and power in Christ? Let go of all that is keeping you from His perfect love and the grace he completed on Calvary as He arose on the third day. By the very definition of grace, we do not deserve what we receive from Jesus but aren’t you so glad that He saw fit to offer it to us anyways!
Blessings
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