Embrace the Within no. 195

“Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts and passions. Do not go on offering members of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness. But offer yourselves to God [in a decisive act] as those alive [raised] from the dead [to a new life], and your members [all of your abilities—sanctified, set apart] as instruments of righteousness [yielded] to God. For sin will no longer be a master over you, since you are not under Law [as slaves], but under [unmerited] grace [as recipients of God’s favor and mercy]” (Romans 6:12-14 AMP).

Faith is an action. Hope is my confidence. I wake up every day with a choice. I live each moment with a choice. I am the sum of those decisions. Am I going to choose to act with faith?

There is nothing I can do to deserve grace. There is no amount of deeds I can do to make certain I earn grace. I am given grace freely. I need only take grace. And then I need to act like it.

Works can’t get you grace. Works are there to show your grace. Remember that, “Euen so the faith, if it haue no woorkes, is dead in it selfe” (James 2:17 GNV). So I don’t get a free pass to accept grace and do nothing with that grace. Faith is an action.

That action requires that I live as an Ambassador of His Kingdom by living in alignment with His commands, “'Iesus answered, and sayd vnto him, ‘If any man loue me, he will keepe my worde, and my Father will loue him, and we wil come vnto him, and wil dwell with him. He that loueth me not, keepeth not my wordes, and the worde which ye heare, is not mine, but the Fathers which sent me’” (John 14:23-24 GNV). And that looks a lot like, “''And he sayd to them all, ‘If any man will come after me, let him denie himselfe, and take vp his crosse dayly, and follow me’” (Luke 9:23 GNV). Every moment of every day I need to deny myself, take up His cross, and follow obediently.

Grace and Shalom to your home.

I love you. I forgive you. Have a blessed and abundant day!

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoKingButChrist #EmbraceTheWithin #NotMyWayYHWH

Embrace the Within no. 194

“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the [only] Way [to God] and the [real] Truth and the [real] Life; no one comes to the Father but through Me’” [The sixth of the memorable “I am” statements. See note 6:35](John 14:6 AMP).

The Truth is the Truth. I don’t know if it can be any simpler or clearer than the way Jesus states it. He is Truth and Life. He is the only way to know the Father. Any true understanding I am going to gather about the Father is going to come through the Son revealed through the Spirit. It’s like there was this plan to have all three involved. Like there was some sort of divine plan where God said that I wouldn’t be able to understand the totality of Him so He needed to dumb it down so my feeble human understanding could grasp Him in parts. It’s almost like He chunks the assignment so we can get Him in whole through the pieces. And still I stumble over the forest because I forget to pay attention to the trees and shrubs and animals that inhibit the forest. I stumble and fumble over the details because I want the big picture of God and I just can’t ever grasp that. BUT I so want to grasp it.

I struggled for a long time with trying to reconcile what I saw in God with what my church saw in God. There was a lot of judgment. There was a lot of hypocrisy. There was a lot of wrath. There was a lot of vengeance. And I struggled with how folks could read the same words and not come to a similar understanding. Even now that I am back in churches, I feel that I am the only voice at the table. And if I am wrong in my understanding of Christ, then so be it. I am resigned to living in a relationship with God that reveals Himself as someone that is full of love and mercy and grace. I guess it’s all in how far you want to go in your relationship with God and who dictates the parameters of the relationship.

I don’t have any use for wrath and vengeance and judgment. I don’t get to handle those things. God gets to handle those things. So, I focus on the things God wants me to do. The things He lays out perfectly and simply in Matthew 5-7. I recommend that as a great starting point for understanding Jesus. There are great examples of how the Torah and Commandments of the Hebrews are being understood in the light of His Kingdom. In the Torah, the Commandments are there to guide the Hebrews while they are outside of Canaan and then the laws get expanded and adapted when they move into Canaan and then Jesus expands and adapts the laws as we move into His Kingdom. It’s like God reveals Himself a little portion at a time . . . in chunks . . . like He has a divine plan about all this. BUT how often have I missed that.

I want to jump so quickly into knowing and understanding God totally. I want to have His plan all mapped out and know what He’s doing and how it all works . . . BUT that isn’t my role. I need to tap the breaks. I need to slow down. I need to understand Jesus first. I need to look at how He reveals the Father. I need to look at His example. I need to listen to what He says. I need to let Him dictate how things are going to work. I need to get out of His Way.

And what I have found is that letting God lead is the only way this works.

Grace and Shalom to your home.

I love you. I forgive you. Have a blessed and abundant day!

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoKingButChrist #EmbraceTheWithin #NotMyWayYHWH