My old self has been crucified with
Christ.
It is no longer I who live, but Christ
lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who
loved me and gave himself for me. I do
not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us
right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.
The
choice is yours and mine. We can live by
the law or by grace. We can choose to
live by a set of standards that say things are white and black, right and
wrong. Or we can choose to live by
standards that allow for us and others to have flaws and deal with them.
I
believe that living by the law means that you will never be able to come to the
place where you accept yourself or are able to accept others. Living by grace means that you give yourself
and others leverage to admit shortcomings but deal with them. Far too many people believe that living by
grace means that you can do anything you want and expect God to forgive you or
bless you. Grace gets half of that
right.
Literally
grace is seeing yourself as God sees you.
Grace is the way God accepts us.
Grace is God doing for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves. Grace is admitting you have sinned and have
troubles while allowing the truth of God to forgive and cover your wins. Living by God’s grace means that you see and
walk His path, not your own. Living by
God’s grace means that you accept the forgiveness of God and aim your life
higher and higher allowing God to live through and work through your life.
Law is
rational and explainable. Grace is
divine and often unexplainable. Keeping
the law doesn’t gain us God’s love.
God’s love is real always whether I accept it or recognize it or share
it.
The
best way to see how grace lives is to see how Jesus lives through our
lives. Have you ever known someone who
changed? They might have been selfish,
but one day you noticed they were a bit selfless. Maybe you noticed a person seemed to be cold
but sometime later they were compassionate.
Grace
is God living through us. How grace
lives is by us allowing God to do what He does best. Grace is not just a spiritual concept that
many people think is unreachable. Grace
is full of meaning. Grace is Jesus’ life
flowing through our life as we empty ourselves and let Him live. That is the least we can do after God has
done so much for us.
Sin is no longer your master, for you
no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the
freedom of God’s grace.
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