Christians should know two feelings better than anyone else in the universe: guiltiness and gladness. We must never lose sight of this: our sin is great. We must never lose hope in this: our Savior is greater. A right response to our unfolding transformation as we follow Jesus in faith is the ongoing rhythm of repenting of our sin and rejoicing in our salvation. We are guilty, yet acquitted. We are undeserving, yet rewarded. We are trapped, yet freed. May we know the humbling, exalting experience of knowing both our sinfulness and our Savior. Be glad in this: Our sin may begin our story, but the grace of God will have the final word.
The Right Response To Failure Is Faith
Do you know what your failure is for? It has a purpose, and that purpose is to help you succeed. Not just so you’ll try harder next time. Not just so you’ll be wiser next time. Not just so you’ll do better next time. But rather so you will rely more fully on Jesus next time. His strength. His guidance. His way. His plan. His timing. His help. Failure, futility and frustration are intended to move you away from self-reliance to Savior-reliance, and that move is always for the better. It is always the first and foundational step to real success. The right response to failure is faith, for every person who turns to and trusts in Jesus will win in the end.
What We Most Want Known
My personal mission statement is: “I exist to know Jesus and make Him known so that God is honored in us and we are happy in Him.” That’s what I am after in everything I do … an honored God and happy people. With that as my life’s purpose, what do I most want people to know about Jesus that will enable them to find their happiness in God so that He is honored? Grace. It is the fountainhead from which everything else that is good springs forth and overflows into our lives. Every blessing received. Every burden lifted. Every benefit gained. Every single thing that God offers us now and forever by inviting us into life with Him is secured by Jesus and offered to us freely by grace.
Jesus Governs Our Lives For Our Good
Our hope is not in who sits in the Oval Office, but in Who sits on the throne in heaven. Our hope is not in who governs us on earth, but in Who reigns and rules over the entire universe. Our hope is not in what laws are passed, but in the One Who has written His law of love on our hearts. While politics, parties, programs and policies do have an impact upon our lives and our country, and we should take these things seriously, the optimism we have for everyday and eternal well-being does not rise and fall on one of us, but on Jesus, Who is God with us. This is where we pin our hope: Jesus governs our lives.
Bad, Good, Better, Best
For those who are trusting in Jesus… The bad that we are going through is nothing compared to the good that we’ll get to, good is going to come from the bad we are going through, and God will give us all that we need to get through the bad to the good. Our struggles are real, but they are not permanent or pointless, and we are not pitiful or powerless. The enemy wants us to live in defeat and despair as if our lives are only going to go from bad to worse. But our redemption stories move from bad to good when we met Jesus earlier, good to better as we follow Jesus now, and better to best when we see Jesus later.
Mindful And Merciful
We may be growing in the likeness of Jesus, but there are times we don’t look much like Jesus. It is easy to see these faults and flaws in other people while overlooking our own sinful shortcomings. Hypocritically ignoring the log in our eyes while harshly judging the speck in the eyes of those around us will only be remedied when we recognize our sin, repent of our sin, receive forgiveness for our sin, and resolve to help others be as forgiven and free as we are. We point ourselves to Jesus; we point others to Jesus. Today, let us be as mindful of our sin as we are of others, and as merciful to others as we are to ourselves.
Savior Help Is Better Than Self Help
People are desperately in need of the gospel, but they reject it because they would rather rely on good advice for what they need to do rather than receive good news about what Jesus will do for them. Humans love self-help strategies that promise you can fix yourself until they inevitably find that these strategies don’t actually help self. Well-meaning sayings like toughen up, lighten up, buck up and cheer up are just a set up that make us want to give up. Real, lasting inside-out transformation will only come when we ask God to begin and complete His good work in us. He’s ready, willing and able to do it if we’ll stop trying to do it ourselves.
Biblical Humility Is A Response To Grace
Biblical humility is a response to grace. It is an acknowledgement that God helped us over and over in the past and an awareness of our need for God to help us again and again in the future. When you are humble, you know that the good things about who you are and the good things you have done are because Jesus has freely and fully made it so. We work hard, but He empowers us. We make decisions, but He enlightens us. We take opportunities, but He equips us. We keep going, but He encourages us. Let us humble ourselves and exalt Him, for nothing good about our lives would be possible without Him.
He Will Keep You Going
One word that defines every genuine Christian is this: perseverance. That is, those who are heaven-bound keep going until they get there. Grace will make sure that they do! He who has called us is faithful to keep us! So… If you find that serving Jesus feels fruitless or pointless, keep serving. If you find yourself fighting back discouragement and fighting for joy, keep fighting. If you find yourself tempted to give in to the world and its ways, keep resisting. There will be many moments that you fail and fall, but don’t despair. Trust in Jesus and trust in this: He will pick you up and power you on… so you can keep going.
Resisting The Temptation To Get Revenge
When we try to make others pay for their sin, we have forgotten that Jesus paid for our sin. As recipients of grace, we are to release our instinct for revenge when others wrong us to let God judge, punish and make all things right in His timing and in His way. Our role is to model His grace, not His judgment. Even when we must seek appropriate justice, it should be motivated by love, not hatred. So, let us overcome evil with good and leave it to God to do the work He means to do. We who have received grace should be the quickest to extend it, praying that others will turn to Jesus as we ourselves have done.
The Gospel Is A Rescue Plan
The gospel is not a self-help plan; it is a rescue plan. God does not ask us to fix ourselves in five simple steps, but rather to trust in the one stunning step He took in sending Jesus to fix all that is broken in us. His generosity is breathtaking, His goodness is jaw-dropping and His grace is amazing, for He treated His Son like a sinner on the cross so sinners like you and me could be treated like a son. The more we are aware of the depths of our sin, the more we will appreciate the depths of His salvation. So… let us marvel at and rejoice in this today: Jesus paid a debt He did not owe because we owed a debt we could not pay.
He Goes Through Them With You
All times. All places. All circumstances. That’s when and where Jesus will be there with you and for you if you are trusting in Him. There are occasions so wonderful that you never want them to end. There are occasions so painful that they feel like they will never end. The key to not being distracted by the highs and defeated by the lows is to keep your eyes on Jesus and experience His strengthening, sustaining, satisfying presence in both the ups and the downs, the wins and the losses, the pleasures and the pains. Turn to Him. Trust in Him. Treasure Him. You can rightly go through all things because Jesus goes right through them with you.
We All Drift
We all drift. We all move away at times from the beautiful design of how God intends for things to work and the wonderful harmony that God intends for us to experience. One of the reasons He wired us for community is to help each other make our way back to Him when we lose our way, focus, joy, purpose, peace, strength, or hope. When we see each other discouraged in our faith or distracted away from it, let us point each other to the God who sent Jesus to be the anchor for drifters like you and me. He always receives us back, refreshes our hearts and restores our course. He may let us drift, but He will not let us go.
Satisfaction We’ve Been Looking For
If our contentment depends upon our lives being full of good times and good things, we’re going to ride a roller coaster of highs and lows. We will never be satisfied for long. Why not? Because we will find that the details of our lives are constantly changing so that we often have what we don’t want or want what we don’t have. Jesus offers us something infinitely better… His unchanging presence. His unchanging promises. His unchanging provision. This doesn’t mean that life won’t have its ups and downs. It means that no matter what life is like… When we look to Jesus, we will find the satisfaction we’ve been looking for everywhere else.
His Every Promise For Good
We will not always understand what God is doing, but we can be confident that whatever He is doing is for the ultimate good of those who love Him and have been called by Him. Our confidence rests in this: Our love for Him is the evidence of His call to us. He is the Author and Finisher, and though there are moments when our love falters, there is never a single moment when God abandons the call He has made upon our lives. His work for us does not rise and fall based on whether our love for Him is strong or weak. He will keep us loving and keep us going until we see His every promise for good fulfilled forever.
What Jesus Did Is Enough For You
There is a word that can drain life out of us. It can make us walk around in shame and guilt. It can rob us of our peace. It can cause us to feel doubt, pressure and fear. This word often doesn’t make us want to try harder; it makes us want to give up. This word is “enough”. Have you prayed, read your Bible, served, loved, trusted, worked hard, shared your faith, worshipped, been kind, helped others, obeyed God, and lived for what matters … enough? No, never enough. But the pressure is off because what Jesus did is enough for those who trust in Him! Secure in this, strive to live in a God-honoring way today while resting in His grace for you.
Overflowing Cups
We are to be generous with our words, actions, time, money, forgiveness, kindness, hospitality, patience, service, friendship, compassion, skills, truth-telling and love. We can confidently share every good resource in our lives knowing that even as we give away, there is always enough. Because if God gave us Jesus, He’ll also give us everything we need along with Him until He welcomes us home. He is always pouring out more forgiveness, goodness, kindness and blessedness so we can be more of a witness to His generosity by giving away part of what He gives to us. Overflowing cups are not for us to choke on, but for us to let others drink from too.
Growing In Grace
There is a three-word description that summarizes what happens from the moment we put our faith in Jesus until the moment we come face-to-face with Him: grow in grace. We are not meant to stay the same or stand still, but to progress in our experience of grace for the rest of our lives. There are countless observations, implications and applications that flow from God’s grace to us, and we have the delightful duty of discovery. Day by day, we are to prize, prioritize and pursue intimacy with Jesus. For progress does not come from fixing ourselves, but fixing our eyes on Him. This is how we grow: we set out to know.
The Point Of Grace Is To Point Us To God
The goal of grace is to unite us to God so that He is honored in us and we are happy in Him. Grace makes it possible for us to personally know God and enjoy Him, along with all of the good gifts that He purposes to give us now and forever. He doesn’t give us what we think will make us happy; He gives us what He knows will make us happy … Himself. Because of the grace of God, we get the God of grace! Therefore, the point of grace is to point us to God, so that we will be satisfied by Him, and He will be glorified by us. God gets the eternal praise that He deserves, and we get the eternal pleasure that we don’t deserve.
To Receive Or Reject Grace
You will either receive the grace of God for your sin or the wrath of God for your sin. There is no third option. Bynature and choice, we sin against God by regularly preferring things over Him and refusing to obey Him, which condemns us to hell. The only remedy is personally receiving the free forgiveness available by faith in what Jesus has done for us, which ushers us into heaven. You get to choose between continuing in sin and continuing with Jesus. Whether you embrace this as the best news ever or dismiss it as foolishness, this is true: You need grace and you can have grace. To reject it is to perish forever; to receive it is to have pleasure forever.
