Tag Archives: judgment

Jan 9 2012

Embrace God’s Grace

Here are some points to remember and declare over your life from the message at The Refuge Sunday morning:

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Eph 2: 8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.

His Grace is greater than my past

2 Cor 5:17 anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

Eph 2:13 …but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead,

You don’t have to worry about your past, it’s under the blood of Jesus Christ.  Under His blood your past doesn’t define your future.

Faith is what propels you to your future – Hebrews 11:1 – Faith is the evidence of Things not seen!

You stay in your past through condemnation.

His Grace is greater than my pain

2 Cor 12:7-10 7 even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud.

8 Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. 9 Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. 10 That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

His grace is sufficient in weakness! Your heart may be broken, body wrecked with pain, and His grace is there to carry you through.

The grace of God can carry you through the most painful times of your life.

When you are mindful of His grace, those that cause you pain are met with the forgiveness and grace working in your life. When this is in place, We forget about our right to judge those who hurt us, and are encouraged by His grace that none of us deserve!

His Grace is greater than my performance

Romans 7:21 I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. 22 I love God’s law with all my heart. 23 But there is another power[e] within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. 24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.

Paul, just like you and I fought between what we have every good thing we have intention to do, and the sinful nature that drives us to do the opposite.  Thank GOD, the answer is in Christ! His Grace is not affected by your performance.  Performance has no bearing on how much grace He has for you!  No matter how well, or how poorly you perform, His grace is given FREELY.

Next week we will talk about our Response to His Grace.

Jun 30 2011

Two Sides to Every Story

God is a just and fair judge.  There is no one on this planet who can be as fair as His judgement. I was reading tonight from Genesis 15, the story of the “Covenant of the Halfs.”  I was stopped in my reading when I came across verse 16:

But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

The New Living Translation reads that verse like this:

After four generations your descendants will return here to this land, for the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction.

Wow.  The thought of God waiting to give His chosen people their land, and allowing them to live for 400 years in Egyptian captivity was all about Him being perfectly fair by waiting to judge another people for their sin ONLY when it warranted destruction gives me chills.

Too often we expect God to give us what He promised NOW. When it doesn’t happen, we give up on it. It’s not His promises that are flawed, it’s our patience! Many times the fullness of God’s call and promise on our lives won’t come until something former has ran its course.  We may be praying to God for our chance at the dream, but on the other side of that may be the person working in that job, living in your dream home, dominating that market, or ministering to that city that is begging God for one more chance to stay.  God’s holding pattern may not be about you after all.  It could all be about His mercy to give someone else every possible opportunity to make it right.