The other day I was at church and the pastor gave a talk about “a prayer for Grace” and what it meant to pray for God’s Grace daily and find it in our lives. That really got me thinking about my short 21 years and how God’s Grace has transformed areas of my life that I have so often overlooked. I’ve realized that I have either taken grace for granted or just been too prideful to accept it. There have been times in my life where I see other people who accept the grace of God no matter how big they screwed up, and then they allow it to reshape their lives. It’s weird though because I still find things in my life or in my past that I feel that God could never forgive me for, almost like I think there is a sin too big for God to handle, one that was just a bit taller and wider than the cross that He hung on. This weekend was a wake up call for me, that God’s grace CANNOT be put into a box. It can’t be narrowed down or specified to a certain area of sin. God’s love doesn’t see us as who we are, but what God has made us through Jesus’ death. I still can’t wrap my head around that.
The church did a pretty cool little thing where there was a series of people who came out on their stage and shared a story on a peice of cardboard. On the front it would say something like “found my identiy in parties and sex” and then on the back it would have a statment such as “Loved by God who calls me His own” proclaiming the way God not only pursued their lives to change them but to change their hearts and extend a gift of grace that could be found no where else.
There is nothing we can hide from God, but at the same time there is nothing that we can do to not be loved by God. I think that we need to be constantly praying for God’s grace to come into our lives and transform our mess, into a message, a message of hope and love, of new beginnings, of restoration and purification.
I think we just need to humble ourselves enough to be at the point where we realize we NEED grace, because there is nothing else we can do to solve that disconnect from God that sin causes.
“And God is able to make all grace aboud to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”-II Corinthians 9:8
“Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”-James 4:5-7
Cheers, thanks for reading
Brandon
