brand spanking sparkling new

I probably don't have time to be writing this post right now, but it's what I'm going to do because God is teaching me amazing things.

A lot of my struggles are in the brain, where I can worry myself silly or fall prey to my own obsessive thoughts or anxieties. On Friday, I was a serious head case and let myself be consumed by thoughts. Sometimes I can try to rationalize and think my faith away. I don't know if anyone else has this struggle, but sometimes my worst enemy is myself. Actually, that is true more often than it is not. There was nothing particularly yucky about Friday but my thoughts and attitude managed to make me feel a little crazed.

The night ended with my sister and I writing a worship song in our dorm room bathtub. So I guess you can say that God used it for His good and glory (Romans 8:28). And I marvel at what He can do, because these past couple of days, He has been doing a changing work in my heart.

Everything contrary to the Word is a lie. The Bible, God's very Word spoken to us, is truth. Nothing else I see or think or feel or believe matters. And He has been reminding me not only of grace, as I posted about yesterday, but also that:

-- My walk with Him is deeply relational and intimate, not binding or legalistic
-- I can't judge people because my impressions and ideas are *always* wrong
-- I have to fix my eyes on Him and the Word, otherwise I will be drenched and dripping in the fickle flesh of self and society

And what simple, fundamental truths these are! Obvious things, small things, but indeed, everything! It all sounds so obvious, but when I'm not in the Word I'm just not seeing at all.

Apart from Him I can do nothing good.

"Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator." ~ Colossians 3:9-10

even when we were dead

When all I can see are the mountains of my own mistakes, all of my failures and the span of my shortcomings, and when my heart is weighted down by the pain I cause and the strife of my spirit; when all I am is false motives and a muddy mind, and when my shoulders are slumping and about to crack under the weight of carrying all my sin, I fall to ground at the feet of Grace.

God is funny sometimes.
And He sure knows how to get to the heart of a matter.

Even though I have been a Christian for over a decade, I find that I am still relearning lessons again and again (and again) and constantly having to return to the fundamental truths of the Gospel. These past few days I have been so overwhelmed with my sin and the sheer amount of it -- how I can't stop sinning, no matter how hard I try.

Then it hit me -- I don't try. I don't try. Jesus does the saving, I do the getting saved. If I could somehow succeed in battling my sin, if I could, in some way, be victorious against it in my own strength, then Jesus wouldn't have had to die to save me. If I could overcome sin alone, I wouldn't have needed saving. But clearly, I do!

Grace has come, grace has won.
And all God's people said Amen!

"But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved." ~ Ephesians 2:4-5

practice

When all I can see are the mountains of my own mistakes, all of my failures and the span of my shortcomings, and when my heart is weighted down by the pain I cause and the strife of my spirit; when all I am is false motives and a muddy mind, and when my shoulders are slumping and about to crack under the weight of carrying all my sin, I fall to ground at the feet of Grace.

God is funny sometimes.
And He sure knows how to get to the heart of a matter.

Even though I have been a Christian for over a decade, I find that I am still relearning lessons again and again (and again) and constantly having to return to the fundamental truths of the Gospel. These past few days I have been so overwhelmed with my sin and the sheer amount of it -- how I can't stop sinning, no matter how hard I try.

Then it hit me -- I don't try. I don't try. Jesus does the saving, I do the getting saved. If I could somehow succeed in battling my sin, if I could somehow be victorious against it in my own strength, then Jesus wouldn't have had to die to save me. If I could overcome sin alone, I wouldn't have needed saving. But clearly, I do!

Grace has come, grace has won.
And all God's people said Amen!

"But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved." ~ Ephesians 2:4-5