Thursday, January 27, 2011

God's Grace

"For the LORD God is a sun and shield. The LORD gives grace and glory; He does not withhold the good from those who live with integrity." Ps 84:11

Last night I could not sleep and I pondered on God's Grace. God's grace is so abounding. I could not think of a time in my life that I have not encountered His grace. Whenever we mess up, His loving arms is always there for us to come back to.

When I looked up the word grace in the dictionary this is the definition that I found:
mercy; clemency; pardon: an act of grace according to http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Grace

I was listening to the radio the other day, as you can tell by my other posts I love music, and this song came on called What love really means and at the end of the song there is a man who is in jail. He calls out to the Lord and says I know I have murdered and Lied and basically cried out for his grace and mercy to save him. The Lord then answered back I will Love you for you, not for what you have done or what you've become.

Two semesters ago when I was in College I got to interview a man for one of my classes who had gone to jail for vehicular manslaughter. While he was in jail he reached out to our Loving savior and was in Awe of his Grace and love to save him after what he had done. This man talked about God like no other that I have heard. The peace and love that this man had was awe inspiring. If God can take the heart of a man who had to live with an accidental killing and change it. Think of all God's grace and mercy can do for us.

God's grace is for all who seek it. God is there, all we need to do is reach out and claim it.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Love

"The LORD will send His faithful love by day; His song will be with me in the night—
a prayer to the God of my life." Ps 42:8

The other night I got a sweet tooth and we were listening to the radio on our way to Dairy Queen and a song came on the radio, and the lyrics really touched my heart. The song was What love really means by JJ Heller.

Part of the lyrics of the song are:

"Who will love me for me
Not for what I have done or what I will become
Who will love me for me
'Cause nobody has shown me what love
What love really means"

This song got me thinking about God's love and how abundant and unconditional it is. He is the only one who will love us for us. There are times in our lives where love will seem conditional. We might have a friend who will get mad at us and not speak to us because of something that we have said or done. We might have a spouse who loves us only if we make supper or clean the house.

When I was in high school I had a best friend that I thought hung the moon, I loved this person so much and told him all of my hopes and dreams and my secrets. Then one day out of the blue, he stopped talking to me and would never tell me why. I was devastated, I was so hurt that I never wanted to have a friend again, because I was so afraid of the hurt.

The good news is that God will never hurt us that way, God's love is not conditional and is never ending.

Praise God for His love!!

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

How He Loves

This morning I was listening to i tunes and the song How He Loves came on by the David Crowder Band. Part of the lyrics of the song are:

He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

I was pondering on these lyrics, thinking about us being like a tree bending beneath His mercy. Oh what Mercy he shows us. We are all sinners saved by His grace, what Mercy and compassion he showed us by allowing His one and only Son to die for us.

"His mercy is from generation to generation on those who fear Him."Luke 1:50

I marvel at His mercy and grace. God is so wonderful.

Dear Lord,

Help us as we go throughout our day, help us Lord to always seek You first and remember that your mercies are new every day Lord. Lord we love You!

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Faith

I think that there are some area's in our life that we like to hold on to and not hand over to God and when we do hand them over, we have the tendency to play tug o war with God and take them back and give them again.

For me the one area that I struggle with is our Finances. God tells us in His word,

"You provided bread from heaven for their hunger; You brought them water from the rock for their thirst. You told them to go in and possess the land You had sworn to give them". Neh 9:15

When Tim and I were first married we lived in the upper part of a Woman's house and we struggled financially. We got to a point one month that we were eating beans and sometimes canned little sausages for supper. It was 5 days before Tim got paid and we were last to 1 can of beans. We had a check for the church for $20, and $2 cash. Tim said we needed to be faithful, I was scared and did not know what to do. We ended up giving the check to the church and had our bean supper that night. The next morning we woke up and there were 2 full bags of groceries at our front door. No one but God knew out financial situation and He provided for all of our needs.

God taught me that day to always put my trust in Him.