Sunday, March 11, 2018

March 11, 2018 Fourth Sunday in Lent

John 3:14-17  (The Message)

14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 1
One of the most difficult truths for us to handle is that it is...”by grace that we have been saved through faith; and this is not our own doing, it is the gift of God...There is nothing here to boast of, since it is not the result of our own efforts.”  Ephesians 2:8,9

We like to boast of how we have God in our control, as one ‘good’ Christian said,  “God doesn’t hear Jewish prayers” - as if we know and control who God listens too!

When God becomes predictable, God also becomes impotent!

Grace means that God loves the person who first said, “God is dead.”
God has compassion for the person who rejects him.
For God’s primary concern is that we allow God to love us, to save us, to touch our hearts and change our living; to rescue us from our ability to self-destruct!

God wants us so badly that if we just give him the least little excuse, God will shower his grace upon us and call us his own!  God is the waiting father/mother!

God also trusts that once this gift of grace hits home, things will start happening in our lives.
The person who truly lives by grace is the last person who can be judgmental towards others.  That is simply a contradiction which leads to hypocrisy of the worst kind.

The line God draws is not a judgment line, but a grace line.  To cross that live is to live in love and forgiveness.  Faith is crossing that line.







The person who truly lives by grace
is the last person who can be
judgmental towards others.









Prayer thought for the week:  “Lord, keep me amazed by your amazing grace so I can be amazingly open to all your creation.”

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