This week’s devotions are based on this week’s message: The Key to life and leadership is Grace! (WATCH HERE)
The Apostle Paul had a dramatic conversion story. There was a clear “before” picture that contrasted with the “after” picture. Before was a clear opposition to anything that Christ stood for and after was a clear zeal for all to know Christ and the power of his grace.
But what about you?
Do you have a “clear” before and after story that makes the reality of grace so evident and obvious?
I have to admit, I don’t.
There has not been a day in my life where I have not known grace. From the waters of baptism at ten days old in 1971 to today, I have been blessed to live in and under the reality of God’s grace.
So, does that make the impact of grace any less?
Impact no. Realization of the impact? Honestly, that can be a challenge.
But this week has helped. I pray it has for you as well.
Max Lucado put it this way in an opening video for a small group study on grace:
God’s grace has a drenching about it. A wildness about it. A white-water, riptide, turn-you-upside-downness about it. Grace comes after you. It rewires you. From insecure to God-secure. From regret-riddled to better-because-of-it. From afraid to die to ready to fly. Grace is the voice that calls us to change and then gives us the power to pull it off.
His point in these phrases is grace is not just an academic or theological concept, it is a life changing reality that defines our being and guides our lives. It is what calls us to faith and gives the power to believe and live that faith. It’s what settles the question of what life is all about and where I’m headed when life ends. It is what makes me secure in my relationship with the holy God and settles my identity as a child of God. It is not an “out there needing to be grasped” reality, but an “in my heart, life changing” reality.
Grace is the key.
We don’t need a dramatic conversion story like Paul or others in our lives. If you do, you may have a different experience with grace, but you still have the same power of grace as someone in whom grace took hold at ten days old. Grace is a gift that is to be loved and lived. It is a reality that is to live in you and flow through you. It is to be appreciated and applied. It is to affect not just part of life, but all of life.
Grace is the key.
Perhaps you have other words to speak of its impact in your life. But let me just share a couple personal ways it is affecting my heart these days.
In an election year and a world that is topsy turvy and at unrest and in conflict, I sleep well at night knowing that I have God’s grace which gives peace. To the extent I can show up as a citizen and affect people in a positive way, I know that the ultimate solution to evil in people’s hearts is the grace of God that changes a heart yearning for evil to a heart that is zealous for good defined God’s way.
In my relationships, I am asking God to fill my heart with grace so that his love flows first out of my heart to my words and actions with my wife, my girls, the people of Crosspoint and our Georgetown community. I am asking him to help me be a conduit of grace to the people around me so that they see his grace living in and through me.
Reflect on your grace story. Realize the profound impact of God’s grace to you. Let it dwell in you and live richly through you!
1 Corinthians 16:3 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. 24 My love to all of you in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Apply: Write out your grace story, taking time to reflect and realize the profound impact grace has had on your life no matter what your story is. Use this story of grace to witness to others the magnificence of God’s amazing grace.
Prayer; Lord, thank you for your incredible love and amazing grace. AMEN