Grace

Grace is word we hear a lot in our lives: Amazing Grace, the Grace of God, etc. Too often, we forget the power that Grace has had in our lives.

Grace means unearned favor. Grace is receiving a gift you didn’t earn or deserve.

I think Todd Agnew’s song Grace like Rain describes Grace so well. We can’t control when it rains. When it rains, it doesn’t mean we have been really holy that weak. It rains on both the right and the wicket. There is nothing we can do to control when the rain comes. However, we can choose how we receive the rain. We can lock ourselves up inside our houses so we don’t get wet, or we can go outside and let the rain soak us.

We can’t earn God’s Grace; we have no control of when it comes. God gives His Grace to whom He pleases. We do have the choice of how we receive the Grace of God; we can either hide from it, or we can go out and soak it up into our lives.

Next time it rains, I hope you’ll get wet.

God in a Box

God doesn’t want to be first in your life. That would imply there is competition. He wants to be your all.

A lot of times, we organize out lives into boxes; our work box, our home box, our friends box, our God box, etc. When we have our life in their own boxes, we look at them and start prioritizing them. God is the most important, so we put in at the top. He’s first in our lives.

There are several problems when organizing our lives like this. The God Box can be move into any place we want. God can slip down into 2nd or 3rd very easily. We decide what is important in our lives. If today we want God to be first, He is. If school seems more important, we move it to the top.

Another problem is we are still in control of our lives. We get to choose; we are in charge. We are in the driver’s seat. We don’t give God our lives. We give Him a box.

God doesn’t want to be in a box. How can He change you or the world if we put Him in a box? He doesn’t want to watch from the side lines as you run your life. He wants to be your life.

Delight

Psalms 37:4, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

The first time I read this, I said to myself, “How does this work? Why isn’t every Christian a millionaire? What about the Christians who are thrown into prison for their faith?” I began to think and pray about it.

As I looked at the verse, I began to realize that if you are truly delighting yourself in the Lord, the desires of your heart will change. His desires will become your desires. His passion will become your passion. You’ll stop worrying about what others thing about you; you’ll want to please the Lord and draw closer to him. It is then, He will give us the desires of our heart. We must delight ourselves in the Lord.

Delight:

1. To give great pleasure to.

2. To rejoice.

Quote from Perelandra

“I think He made on law of that kind in order that there might be obedience. In all the other things you call obeying His is but doing what seems good in your own eyes also. Is love content with that? You do them, indeed, because they are his will, but on only because they are His will. Where can you taste the joy of obeying unless He kids you to do something for which His hiding is the only reason.”
—Random, Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

Pieces By Red Lyrics

Listen to the song

The Lyrics

I'm here again
A thousand miles away from you
A broken mess, just scattered pieces of who I am
I tried so hard
Thought I could do this on my own
I've lost so much along the way

Then I'll see your face
I know I'm finally yours
I find everything I thought I lost before
You call my name
I come to you in pieces
So you can make me whole

I've come undone
But you make sense of who I am
Like puzzle pieces in your eye

Then I'll see your face
I know I'm finally yours
I find everything I thought I lost before
You call my name
I come to you in pieces
So you can make me whole!

I tried so hard! So hard!
I tried so hard!

Then I see your face
I know I'm finally yours
I find everything I thought I lost before
You call my name
I come to you in pieces
So you can make me whole
So you can make me whole

Jesus is love

We are all familiar with 1 Corinthians 13 , or The Love Chapter. We often hear it read at weddings or during a sermon. It is a great chapter and shows a good picture of what love is.

Jesus is love. He doesn’t have love; He is love. You can not separate the two. If you have Jesus, you have love. If you have love, you have Jesus. So, if we go back and look at the Love Chapter seeing Jesus as love, it looks like this:

1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not Jesus, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not Jesus, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not Jesus, I gain nothing.

Jesus is patient, He is kind. He does not envy, He does not boast, He is not proud. Jesus is not rude, He is not self-seeking, He is not easily angered, He keeps no record of wrongs. Jesus does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8aJesus never fails. 13And now these three remain: faith, hope and Jesus. But the greatest of these is Jesus.

Welcome to the Frontlines

We often see our lives as peaceful and calm; we see no war around us. Since life is comfortable, it is easy to relax and forget the deadly spiritual war we are in.

There are two kinds of people Satan loves: unsaved souls, and passive Christians. Why? Passive Christians can’t hurt him in this war. They just sit in church and watch. We are not called to sit on the sidelines and watch; we are called to fight with every breath we have. The truth is we are in a war against Satan, Hell and all the demons. We are called to attack, to take the offensive position.

Jesus said to Peter in Matthew 16:18-19,
“18And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Gates don’t move. They can’t march with armies. We should go to the gates of Hell to fight. We are called to press the enemy so hard he is forced to retreat to the gates of Hell. In this world we live in, we can’t afford to wait until Satan strikes us; that only makes a passive church and a passive Christian. Strike first; force Satan to retreat to the Gates of Hell.

Too silent

A quote I heard when I was at Acquire the Fire Conference:

“The reason there is evil in the world is not because wicked men are hard at work. The reason there is evil in the world is because good men are silent.”