This week’s devotions are based on this week’s message: The Key to life and leadership is Grace! (WATCH HERE)
“What God gives to you is meant to flow through you.”
A speaker at a campus ministry used this phrase as he wrapped up the school year to encourage the students as they scattered from the campus to their summer internships, breaks, or family vacations.
Do we carry this thought as we go through life?
Perhaps it is easier to grip and hang on to the grace of God and treasure it for ourselves. Without a doubt, grace is an amazing blessing and reality for ourselves. It gives us security in our status before God and it solidifies our identity as a child of God. These are realities I pray we never let go of.
However, the message and impact and power of grace are not just for our heart. God has given it to us to be a blessing, but also for us to bless others. What God has given to us is meant to flow through us. I like that phrase because it reminds me that grace sends me with purpose.
Life no longer is about my sinful nature, selfish agenda, but rather the agenda and purpose which God has given me to be an ambassador of his grace. Look at what the Apostle Paul wrote: 2 Corinthians 5:18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.
I’ve imagined a conversation in heaven after Jesus finished his work on earth. The imaginary scenario was posed that Jesus was talking with the Holy Spirit in heaven, who congratulated Jesus on a job well done. But then the Spirit asks, “You entrusted this great message to those 11 disciples? What happens if they don’t take the truth you gave them and share it with others?” To which Jesus replied, “I don’t know. I have no plan B.”
The amazing thing about grace is, like Paul, God has called us to a ministry to be an ambassador of grace, to take what God has given to us and let it flow through us. What is incredibly powerful about this is that it is simply sharing your story with grace. You get to relate to others the impact God’s grace has had on you.
But, that means realizing the impact God’s grace has had on you!
The Apostle Paul understood the impact that God would take him “the worst of sinners” and appoint him to his service.
1 Timothy 1:15 Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. 16 But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.
Could we say the same about ourselves? To be sure. Sin is sin. Grace is grace. Paul had his story. We have ours. If we were the only sinner in the world, Christ Jesus would have come to display his unlimited patience for us and to us. We are the example today of God’s grace. If God can save us by his grace, he can save anyone else in this world. It’s this simple reality that we get to share with the world because grace sends us with this purpose: Be an ambassador of grace!
Apply: Notice today the people around you. To whom is God sending you to share the message of grace. Let what God has given to you, flow through you today!
Prayer: Lord, thank you for showing me unlimited patience by giving me your grace. Use me, wherever you send me, to be an ambassador of your grace to the people around me. AMEN.