After breakfast with a friend this morning, I ran a couple errands to get ready for church on Sunday. After a stop at Office Max, I went next door to Barnes & Noble. I ordered a sugar-free cinnamon dolce decaf latte at Starbucks and then went to look around.
I picked up a book, which I later purchased, by Chuck Swindoll called The Grace Awakening. I thought it would be helpful for my sermon on Sunday. I found a comfortable chair and sat down to read.
Almost immediately, a man sat down in the chair across from me. For the next 15 minutes he proceeded to fill me in on all the bad news I’ve diligently avoided for the past couple of months. I now know President Obama is a socialist and in three years our country will look nothing like it does today. We’ll probably be attacked on our soil. The dollar will crash soon, probably within a year, but world leaders are already working on a back-up currency to put in place. It won’t be long before we’re buying food with Euros here in America. Of course, we’re not the only country headed down the tubes–several countries in Europe are about to go bankrupt.
I find it interesting that just an hour earlier, I had asked my friend to pray that I will continue to believe God, not circumstances. My tendency, it’s probably personality combined with sin, is to worry and become anxious when I can’t see how things will work out. It’s the reason I called this blog, I Believe God. I must intentionally choose to believe Him or I will give in to worry and fear.
Back to the subject of the book. God’s grace is the expression of His love and kindness toward us. We don’t deserve His love and we can’t ever earn it. It’s free. It’s a gift. Your good behavior won’t get you more of it and your bad behavior won’t get you less of it. God accepts you by grace. No amount of good deeds will do it. You are forgiven by grace and you live by grace. Your service, your prayers, your giving, your anything else does not impress God or compel Him to love you any more or any less.
Our experience of grace though can be effected by our negative emotions…like fear and worry and anxiety. Believing what I see rather than what is true is a recipe for making God small and grace not so amazing.
Failures, mistakes and sins also gang up on us to create feelings of shame, guilt and even self-loathing. Rather than running in the joy of grace, we feel weighed down by the heaviness of disgrace.
Receiving and enjoying God’s grace means choosing to believe that what He says is true. You are loved and accepted by Him just the way you are. He knows your every need and will meet them. He will never leave you nor forsake you. You are His child and His every thought and action toward you is filled with kindness and goodness beyond measure.
His grace, the means by which we enjoy all that He is and all that He’s done for us, is always more powerful than disgrace. Remember though, you have an enemy who wants you living in disgrace, weighed down by the heavy chains of fear, shame, worry, guilt, anxiety and self-hatred. He will scheme to remind you of your sins and your failures, your weaknesses and your overwhelming circumstances.
He’s prowling around like a lion looking for someone to devour. He might even send someone to sit down across from you at Barnes & Noble.
I want to thank my good friend, Pam Davis, who continues to teach me about God’s amazing grace.