Yesterday I talked about God’s grace and how it’s available for each and every one of us. This gift is not only available for us but it’s available free of charge! Now how many of us would pass up on getting a free gift with no strings attached? Well I’m going to go out on a limb and say that not many of us would pass that up. But the amazing thing is there are so many of us who have passed up the free gift of grace and salvation offered by our Lord through his son Jesus Christ. Let’s take some time today to reflect on why that is.
In day 2 of Pastor Rick Warren’s Essential For Living devotional he talked about us accepting God’s grace. He spoke on how this gift is waiting for us and we have to accept it in order for it to have any meaning in our lives. The one reason he highlighted that many of us have not accepted the gift is fear of rejection. Many of us have been so hurt in the past by people we loved, people we respected, people we looked up to, that we no longer trust. We find it hard to believe that someone like our holy God would want to give us a free gift of grace with all the wrong we’ve done in our lives. So instead of relying on God’s word and His undying love for us, we reflect back on the times that others have rejected us. We fear the pain of rejection and we don’t want to be hurt again.
But as I spoke about in an earlier blog, we cannot let fear dictate how we live our lives. We definitely can’t let fear keep us from taking and unwrapping the free gift of grace, mercy and love that God wants to give us. This is what the enemy wants, and this is one of the ways he keeps us from God. I fell into this boat for the longest time when I let the enemy make me believe I wasn’t worthy of God’s grace. Because of past sins I thought there was no way that God wanted to open His arms and love me, not without some kind of payment on my part. So what you try to do is put God on hold and say, I’ll come to you God once I get my life straightened up and I can feel better about myself. We fall into the lie that God wants us to be perfect before He will accept us. How many of you reading this right now are dealing with this? Today is the day to stop believing the lie.
Romans 5:8 (NLT) says it perfectly, “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” God did not wait for us to get our act together before He sent Jesus down to die for our sins. He didn’t wait for us to clean up our lives. He didn’t sit up in heaven looking down on us saying Shame Shame Shame. No he took us, in our broken and sinful form, and said I want to give you salvation and I want you to have it for free.
Now is the time for you to accept the gift and let Him do a great work in your life. Today is the day to stop dealing with the pain, hurt, shame, etc. on your own. Today is the day to change the course of your life and let God’s love and mercy lead you towards your true destiny!
Truth in Love! ~ Chuck
One thought on “Accept The Gift”
I think it’s a natural “flesh” response to questions God’s desire for us when we have so many imperfections; I mean look at the tangible world we live in that rejects us daily based on human perspective and rules… God’s not present in physical form for us to see and talk to face to face, so often times we question if His face is all turned up at us, is He really listening or has He walked away from our absurd request, or is He rolling His eyes at me?!
At this point in my walk with Christ, I don’t question His desire to provide me grace, mercy and love… I do struggle with His plan (gift), my plan or the world’s plan for me though… I find it hard to distinguish if something put in front of me is by His grace or by my or the world’s doing. I talk with Him daily to feel His presence in decisions I make, but sometimes I can’t distinguish and I am left with the feeling of uncertainty. Thus, my greatest fear now is that I will pursue something that is not from Christ and ultimately will go down a path not intended for me… I know I can’t be led by fear, but all I really want to do is satisfy my Father, so I plead with Him not to let me get these decisions wrong!