Freedom Through His Grace

I've been wrestling with God a lot about the freedom and grace He's offered us. My mind is struggling to comprehend this kind of love. Honestly, I will most likely never understand.

My dad's been studying Romans 8 and has been sharing his learnings with me. The entire chapter seems to shout aloud the freedom we have through God's beautiful gift: grace. Without it, we are doomed to a life of striving to earn God and His holy resting place. Without it, our sin separates us from our Daddy. Without grace, we're condemned to eternal separation from Him.

But with it.. with God's grace, is amazing beauty. I truly believe that as a church, we do not even remotely understand this concept. Those who (like myself) grew up in church probably have less of a capability of getting it. We have fallen into the same mindset as Israel – we're dying to be free but we keep longing to return to Egypt and accept slavery as all this life has to offer.

..Because, who are we to accept this awesome gift God has given freely, with no expectation of receiving anything in return? We don't think we deserve it, so we sell ourselves to slavery because that's where we feel we belong.

But God says, “Fear not, for I have summoned you by name; you are Mine” (Is. 43.1).

God has called us to receive this free and beautiful gift He's offering.. and all He asks is for us to simply accept it. Once we accept, He glorifies and justifies us in His kingdom. Once we accept, we are His for eternity. Because who or what can stand against God and try to separate us from Him? Paul, in Romans 8, says that neither death, life, angels, demons, present, future, any powers, height, depth, or anything else in all creation will ever be able to separate us from God's love! The only reason being because Christ died for and conquered all of our sins, faults, failures and mistakes! He has already won! There's nothing else we can offer or do.. it's already been done for us.

We sing, “Hallelujah, You have won the victory. Hallelujah, You have won it all for me.” We shout, “You have won the victory, we're living in Your freedom!” ..but man, we just do not understand these words, or what Christ really did for us.

I don't understand it.. but that's okay.

We are gonna screw up. We're gonna make mistakes. We're going to do things that go against God's very being. Because, like Paul said, our flesh and spirits will always be at war with each other. Our flesh wants to defy God and follow its own pleasure and desires, but our spirits long to pursue Him.

And God says, “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Sam. 16.7).

God is far more concerned with the condition of our hearts than he is with how many people we change or outreaches we go to or church functions we attend or how many times we read the bible and pray. He's always only looked at the heart.

And when we mess up, we will be punished. We're always going to have to live with the consequences of our actions. God punishes us just like a daddy would his kid.. He loves us and wants the absolute best for us.

Rob Bell says in one of his videos that there is nothing we can do to make God love us less.. Well I want to add onto that and say that there is nothing we can to to make God love us more; there's nothing we can do to earn Him.

He's already done it all.

So why are we even here? Solomon concludes that the ultimate purpose of our lives is to fear and glorify God. He also states that there is nothing better to do than to enjoy life and do good while we're alive. Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love Him with all our heart, soul and mind. That's why we're alive, we're here to accept and live in God's divine love.

This is all Jesus is asking of us! God just wants us to accept His free gift of grace, receive His Holy Spirit and live through us all our lives! Our whole life will be an act of worship simply because we've allowed the Holy Spirit to breathe into us and move us.

This is how we can really “live life to the fullest” (Jn. 10.10). Whether we believe it or not, we are loved, and we are free.

--Peace and Love.