Saturday, June 14, 2008

#12 grace in the gutter?

I have never actually explained the title of my blog.  
It's derived from a quote from Charles Spurgeon in his sermon, "A Divine Challenge".

God's grace can and will go everywhere.  There is nowhere we can go that his grace will not follow us, and ultimately is unable to save and redeem us from.  He is able to make something beautiful out of what once seemed lost, dirty, and shameful.

I think we often view God and place expectations on him according to our own experiences of human beings and how they treated us.  We assume that God holds grudges.  Human beings are not graceful by nature, so we assume that God is not either.

How wrong.

I was sitting with my hero/pastor this week talking about my future.  I was saying to her how I was so wary of stepping "out of the will of God" and stuffing things up.  She smiled, looked at me, and asked me a question....

"What do you know about the character of God?"

I was a little confused, but answered "Well....he loves me...and wants the best for me..."

"Exactly" She replied.  She then went on to explain that God wants to see us succeed, and will take everything we do, and turn it into something good.  His grace is sufficient.  If I take  a wrong turn, he isn't going to give up on me!  Renouncing him totally and living it up in Las Vegas for 10 years is not really helping....but you get the point.

Thank God (literally) for grace.  I am thankful that my God is a God of forgiveness and grace, whose mercies are new every morning.  

Let's stop viewing God the way we view our fellow man.  He is forgiveness.  He is love.  He is perfect.

He makes all things new.


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