More Things That I am Finally Learning

I look back on an unjust action which had taken place last year.

I remember feelings so shocked and fearful. I could not understand what was happening, and there was such a sense of fear and terror.

Really, it's not right to use those terms, since I was not being attacked by a wild animal or anything.

Today, I realize why I was feeling the way that I was feeling. I felt that if something bad was happening to me, it must mean that "I did something wrong."

Yet we are no longer under law in Christ Jesus. We are under grace.

This idea that God punishes us with bad outcomes, or that we have done something wrong to deserve unfair outcomes--that is not where we live now.

Even when we sin, even when we fall, even when we fail--grace superabounds.

This is a bad habit which many of us still hold onto. We think that bad things should not happen to us because we are obedient children, doing what we are told, following all the rules.

Grace is not for people who deserve it, or who deserve anything. Grace is for those who do not deserve it, and if we are honest, not one person deserves anything in this life.

We all deserve death, but even while we were still sinners, God our Father sent Jesus His Son to die for us!

"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

It's really amazing, but so true, that I had to get out of these terrible habit of automatically thinking that I had done something wrong when something bad happened to me. Any sense, any trace of condemnation must be rejected, cast aside, cast out.

Do we not believe what Paul wrote to the Romans?

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:1, NIV)

Jesus does not go away, does not put pressure on me, does not shame me when I fail.

What He does instead is ... give more grace!

"But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound" (Romans 5:20)

and

"But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble." (James 4:6)

Let's be humble. We need to stop thinking that there is something that we are doing, or that we have avoided doing, that brings in God's favor into our lives. So much of our doing frustrates God's being in our lives, working in and us through us.

For the longest time, I was striving to figure out what I did or not did not do that was bringing such great things to happen to me.

The truth is, it was God blessing me the whole time. He was sending good my way, and all I had done was ask. It was not about what I had done to get God to move. It's that God had always been moving, and I just learned to rest in Him.

The larger revelation which has allowed all the other revelations to break forth in my life? Jesus! He is alive. He is not some mind game, some figment of my imagination. He is not someone who is here today, gone tomorrow depending on my thoughts, feelings, or moods.

Jesus! I love you so much, I never realized how real, how active, how ALIVE you are! Thank you for bearing with me all this time!