What is grace, and why do I need it?

What is grace, and why do I need it?

Search your heart and ask yourself if there are selfish, prideful things that you have done that benefitted yourself in the short term, but that have negative consequences – either unconsidered costs that you came to realize later, or costs to others that were not a concern to you at the time, or even the bad example that your life choices served for those little eyes around you watching to later replicate your actions.

Does your heart not cry out to you and press you to examine your life and to see a change? And have you not found that your imperfections, your flaws, your addictions – these unseen enemies within you that drag you along in chains into consequences that you would rather avoid – that they are strong and overcome you when you battle them alone?

You are not meant to make war on your own against these unseen enemies,  man of flesh. You are not meant to accept defeat or to be content participating in war against your fellow brothers and sisters. You can know victory.

But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.
John 1:12-13 NLT
http://bible.com/116/jhn.1.12-13.NLT

For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.  God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
John 3:16-17 NLT
http://bible.com/116/jhn.3.16-17.NLT

Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again.  But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”
John 4:13-14 NLT
http://bible.com/116/jhn.4.13-14.NLT

The battle is not yours to win alone,  but you can choose to be on the winning side. You can choose to bring positive impact and love and change to the world around you. You can live a life guided by the strength that overcomes. You can be alive to a renewed life in Christ, and freed from the slavery of your old life of sin.

I’m not selling you a religion, friend. I’m not convincing you to buy into a once a week religious practice. I’m not manipulating you to put part of your money into an offering plate,  friend. I’m telling you that religion will send many to hell.

What I am telling you is that Christ can take hold of your whole life. He can live in you and through you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year – and even more importantly,  breath by breath,  thought by thought, loving action by loving action. You can realize that everything that you have is a blessing rained down upon your life by the creator. You can realize what you deserve by your life’s works is nothing c short of hell,  but that by His grace, He offers you nothing short of heaven, of being a born again Child of God.

We are not just men and women of flesh and blood,  friends. Know your true self,  know your true value in eternity as a Child of God. Cling to your right to become a Child of God. Seek first the Kingdom of God and those things eternal. See past the veil of this world’s lies and substitutions that have no glow at all beside the light of His grace and glory.

Know victory.
Know His grace.
Celebrate His Glory.