Monday, August 8, 2011

Living in God's Amazing Grace

God's GRACE is an important to me!! In 1999 I started God revealed the truth about grace, acceptance and forgiveness that is mine through Christ, and my identity and inheritance in the Kingdom of God. I’ll never forget the day God revealed the truth to me. The whole front of my shirt was wet from my own tears of joy! I called Debbie and told her that God had shown me something that I had never heard preached from a pulpit. I also told her that if I determine that it’s the truth, I will spend the rest of my life teaching others about what God was teaching me! Good news folks! It was and is and always will be the truth!
This blog is one of the resources God has given me to share HIS message and MY story! It is a constant theme in my preaching/teaching. As I said, I will spend the rest of my life telling anyone who will listen about the grace of God!
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LIVE IN THE GRACE OF GOD?

The following statements reflect what it means to live in God's grace. There is great power that results from exchanging your life for the life of Christ in and through you!!

 It means serving God because He has fully and permanently accepted us through Jesus Christ, not because we want to gain His acceptance or become more pleasing to Him through our works.

 It means motivating Christians to live out of love and thankfulness, rather than guilt and duty.

 It means believing firmly in Biblical absolutes and trusting in the life of Christ within to enable us to live by those absolutes, but rejecting attempts to legislate the Christian life through human rules.

 It means unconditionally accepting people at their current level of spiritual growth and development without condoning their sin, just as God does, then encouraging them to grow in an atmosphere of grace.

 It means creating an environment of honesty and transparency that models God's love and acceptance; not ignoring or approving a person's sin, but loving people in spite of their sin with a goal of bringing them to truth about it.

 It means placing the primary emphasis of the Christian life on inner motivations rather than outward behaviors, believing that when inner motivations are right, the right outward behavior will follow.

 It means refusing to deny or minimize the pain that comes into our lives because of our own sins and failures or the sins and failures of others; rather, it means viewing pain as a means of bringing us to an experience of God's grace and life.

 It means following the relational style of Jesus, who accepted and forgave sinful, lost people, even though they may have failed miserably, then through truth and love led them to a better life in Him.

 It means interpreting the Biblical commands as describing a mode of life befitting someone who has already been accepted by God, not as laws that bring us more merit with God.

 It means resting IN the life of Christ and operating from our new identity in Him, not in our own strength, but His.

I am constantly amazed at God’s grace in my life. There is nothing I can do to earn it, I do not deserve it but God gives it to me anyway!! What a great God we serve!

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