Tag: Amazing Grace

Mountain valley covered in morning mist with sun rising over distant peaks
Posted in Bible study, Christ is All I Need, Devotion, From the Insideout, Journey Through The Word, LGG Study, Quiet Time

Confident Hope

Posted on by MaryEllen

 We always pray for you, and we give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all of God’s people, 5 which come from your confident hope of what God has reserved for you in heaven. You have had this expectation ever since you first heard the truth of the Good News.

Colossians 1:3-5 (SOAP verse 5)

Friends, I am borrowing from the LGG Study Journal again today – partly because I am having computer problems and having to use my iPad to post this, but also because I was out later than expected tonight helping Abi with her classroom.

Today’s focal point is verse five, and it is one of the key verses of the entire book. A reminder for us that it’s not just important to have faith – we must be confident in our faith – the belief in the truth that God has promised us a home in heaven with Him … not because our parents believed, or because “we worked for it or earned it, or ever could,” but solely because of God’s amazing grace.

Consider these words from the LGG team:

Do you often think of the hope lad up for you in heaven? The hope that one day, you will be totally healed and perfected, forever filled with indescribable joy? That all your tears will be wiped away, and nobody will ever cause you grief again? That you will finally see the loving face of Jesus?

Note how this hope came to us: Through the gospel. We didn’t work for it, and we don’t deserve it. But God gave us hope simply because we heard the message of truth and believed it. The gospel is the message that Jesus died and rose again three days later to forgive us of all our sins. It is a gift of grace through faith. God has subsequently prepared a place in heaven for those who trust in His Son.

Our hope as Christians is based only on God’s grace. Because it’s not based on our performance, it is firm. It is not a case of “I hope I’ll make it to heaven somehow.” Instead, we can proclaim, “I know I’ll make it to heaven because of what Jesus has done for me.”

Have you ever heard the phrase that some people are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good? Clearly this is not the teaching of the Bible. Right here, Paul is saying that the hope of heaven actually gives rise to love and encourages us to live faithfully and missionally here on earth. Real heavenly mindedness will make us more loving, less self-centered, less fearful, and less greedy.

Jesus Himself promised that whatever it may cost us now to serve and love others, our reward in heaven makes these sacrifices more than worthwhile.

Lord Jesus, please open the eyes of my heart so that I can see more clearly the glorious future that awaits me. – Amen.

Reflection and Application:

What about you? Is your faith confident or shakable? Is it based on the truth of the Gospel that you have heard or is it in the church…the people…your family…your good works??? Take some time and consider these questions and examine your faith.

Posted in Bible study, From the Insideout, Journey Through The Word, Know These Truths, LGG Study, Prayer Starters, Quiet Time, Secure In Christ

A New Identity

Posted on by

based on Secure in Christ, w1d1

Read: Eph 1:1-2; Acts 9:1-9, 17-18; SOAP: Eph 11

This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus.

From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints [in Ephesus], the faithful in Christ Jesus. 2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

Ephesians 1:1-2

Friends, have you ever found yourself making snide comments or turning away from someone with a scandalous or tainted past? Or, perhaps you’ve been on the receiving end of the sneers and brush-offs because of something from your past that others still judge you for. The example we see in today’s Scriptures should help us understand the wrongness of both.

Paul was cruel, a persecutor of Jesus’ followers – that is – until he was radically changed by God.

🦋

Paul was a persecutor of believers. Actually, when Jesus identifies Himself to Paul, He says, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Paul was a wicked man, intent on ridding the world of Jesus and His followers who spouted His teachings. That is, until Paul, looking for more believers to capture, met Jesus on the road to Damascus, and his life was forever transformed. To quote from one of my favorite songs: “This is amazing grace! This is unfailing love ~ That You would take my place ~
That You would bear my cross, You laid down Your life ~ That I would be set free. Oh, Jesus, I sing for ~ All that You’ve done for me!”

Who breaks the power of sin and darkness?
Whose love is mighty and so much stronger?
The King of glory, the King above all kings
Who shakes the whole earth with holy thunder?
And leaves us breathless in awe and wonder?
The King of glory, the King above all kings

This is Amazing Grace

 It isn’t only others who report Paul’s cruelness, but Paul himself shares his testimony with Timothy, in 1 Timothy 1:12-17, saying: “I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service,  though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief,  and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.  But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”

Amazing grace (how sweet the sound)
that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
was blind, but now I see.

Amazing Grace

It’s a beautiful testimony that I would dare say most of us can relate to in some way. After all, we are all sinners who have fallen short of God’s glory1. None of us has been saved by our good works, but solely by God’s miraculous and radical gift of amazing grace, and this only through our faith in Jesus.2 While we may not want to expose our old selves to others as Paul has done, just the words, amazing grace, bring tears as I remember the sin and shame that used to define my life. Yet joy flows with those tears as I remember “Calvary covers it all!” Friends, understanding this truth changes everything. It changes our relationship with God – the Father, Spirit, and Son; and it changes (or should change) the way we live and how we look at the sins of others. I mean, seriously – if God can love me after everything I’ve done, if He can invite me to boldly come into His presence (and He does), then who am I to turn away from or sneer at others for their sins? After all, Jesus explicitly gave us a new commandment to love others just as He has loved us3, and may we never forget that Scripture says that Jesus laid down His life for us while we were still sinners4.

If you followed along in our recent Abiding in Jesus journey, then you know that Jesus calls us His friends – a reminder that our old sin nature is gone and the new has come. Or as Paul said, “So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time, we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now!  This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!3“

Perhaps you’ve lived a life with no “major sins” to regret, or maybe your life (like mine) holds sinful choices/actions that still taunt you or others still ‘remember’ against you today. Regardless of where you are on this spectrum, the truth is the blood of Jesus covers it all, His righteousness has been imputed to us, and the freedom He died to bring us is available to all who believe. This is made clear through Paul’s life and the words he wrote to the Church of Rome, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus …4” When old sins and regrets haunt us or when we are tempted to judge another for their sin, may the Spirit be quick to remind us that, as this sweet old refrain says: “Calvary covers it all.” Jesus went to Calvary, taking on Himself all of our past, all of its sin and stain, all of our guilt and despair – and His blood poured out and covered it all! And now with Paul, we can declare that we are *“disciples of Christ Jesus by the will of God.“

The More We Know
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* emphasis added