It’s been one of those days and one of those weeks when I am especially glad God specially designed the route to heaven in such a way that even someone just like me can enter into its purity. In fact there is even a verse in Scripture that says the promise comes by faith so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all who believe.
I am really grateful God designed the criteria for belonging to His family in such a way that even someone like me can be fully accepted into it. I am not barely standing inside the door. I am not barely acceptable. I don’t have to hang my head in the corner of the room in shame. I am just as acceptable as all the others who have been accepted. Wow! they realized they were weak too and placed all their hope in Jesus!
The ticket to heaven is not based on actions in case anyone would decide to boast about what they have done and how good they have done it.
Most of Romans has been extremely encouraging this week. It would be. Romans is especially encouraging to read when one makes major screw-ups, especially when one makes several in one week. I wonder if sometimes we are like a bomb waiting to explode. I must have been. So seldom do I do so; but when I do so, it is so unpretty.
There is another verse in Romans that has been really frustrating me. I usually use the word “challenging” to describe verses that are catching my attention. It sounds positive, but I don’t think my interaction with this verse is all that positive. It is a simple verse that I almost wish wasn’t there; and when I share it with you, you may think I am weird for even noticing it existed in the first place.
Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God.
I am especially annoyed by this verse because I am pretty much 100% positive that I don’t glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. I am pretty sure that I usually whine, bitch and moan in my service to God. He asks me for my…
I was going to say He asks me for my heart, and by the way I act you would think He was asking for my right arm. But then I realized that He asks for all of me, so I was going to have to come up with another way of saying what I wanted to say. Perhaps it is this…
He invites me to receive eternal life in return for Him paying the debt for all my sins, and some days you would think I am sacrificing when I follow Him. By the way I whine, bitch and moan, one would think I was the one given the un-earned debt to pay. It is a never-ending war in my mind. He invites me to experience life, and I complain like there is no tomorrow.
Someone texted me this week and let me know someone had died. They made the comment that the person was gone forever, I couldn’t help but thinking that their forever had just begun.
I never need complain like there is no tomorrow because I have eternal tomorrows. He has even invited me to have lots of fun with Him along the way. But there is a price to the fun He invites me to have. In order to have it, I must give up the deceptive fun the world offers. He asks me to give up the momentary fun that I so often use to escape my pain. He seems to think it important I that I feel the pain of this life. That I don’t deny the pain of sin, but instead I realize how desperately I need Him to overcome it for me.
I am not good at any of this. In my inner being I desperately want to live a selfless life, but in action I continually find myself caring only for myself. Not really caring what others think, feel or experience. If I could just keep myself safe, then everything would be okay.
And that is what I was planning to write about this week: how God has taught me to live a life without monetary safety. I wanted to share what I have come to know about living on daily bread. But this other topic seemed more appropriate given the week I have actually had. Perhaps next week I will share with you how God has taught me to be grateful for my temporal poverty.
Why are you grateful that entrance into God’s family is not based on what you do? How does receiving God’s grace through faith transform your life?
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