Day 20 of the #31dbc!
Do you expect Great Things from God?
Do you believe He wants the very best for you?
Or have you lived a beaten-down life?
Are you living under the Law and not under Grace? Still tied down to rules and regulations?
Friend, Jesus nailed all of those things to the cross over 2,000 years ago. He wants you to experience His grace! You are to be able to come boldly and freely to Him today and every day. The veil in the temple was torn in two when He said, “It is finished…” and that signified that no longer did we have to go through a mediator to get to Almighty God!
It also did away with the sacrifices of bulls, goats and other animals.
The only sacrifice He wants is YOU.
He wants you to give your life back to Him. Not in a physical sense as He did on the cross, but in a spiritual sense as He wants you to LIVE for Him with all of your heart. To love Him, serve Him and give Him your all.
“So he answered and said, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’” Luke 10:27 NKJV.
You mean I can live any old way I want? There is no Law any longer? No, that is not what it means.
Paul said without the Law, we would not know sin! “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, ‘You shall not covet.’” Romans 7:7 NKJV.
God didn’t do away with the Law; it reveals our need for Grace.
Grace is unmerited pardon of past sins and forgiveness with real repentance.
Grace will cause you to want to live a life that is pleasing to God.
The New Testament leaders did not do away with the Law, including the Ten Commandments. “Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.” Romans 7:12 NKJV.
And John said, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.” 1 John 5:3 NKJV.
Grace is God’s unmerited favor, kindness and mercy. It does what the Law can NOT do… Roman 6:14. “For sin shall not have dominion over you for you are not under the law, but under grace.”
But it doesn’t give us license to sin or to ignore His commandments. For Paul goes on to say in the 15th verse, “What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.”
Under the Law, if you broke a commandment, the penalty was severe and instantaneous. Sometimes it meant you were cast out of the “camp”, or your family. Totally cut off. Other times, according to the sin that was committed, the sentence was death. There was no mercy!
But under Grace, we no longer live under the penalty of the Law. We haven’t thrown the Law away!
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
“That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Romans 8:1-4.
Under Grace, we come to the Lord Jesus Christ and repent, ask for forgiveness and receive mercy. If there is sin that has consequences, sometimes we have to pay for those mistakes, we are not exempt from the law of man. We do not have a license to sin repeatedly and keep running back to God just because He will forgive us.
But a true relationship will cause us to want to please God. We are no longer under bondage, rules and regulations but are free to live a victorious life in Jesus Christ. Filled with His spirit, full and overflowing with the Love of God and expecting great things in our walk with Him.
We will want to share what He has done for us with others, how can we keep it to ourselves?!
Have you been set free?
Are you living an overcoming life?
Are Grace and Mercy freely spoken in your home?
Or is the Law hanging over your head like a cloud?
We can receive forgiveness for our mistakes under grace, not a license to sin. But even better than that we are offered a relationship with the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ the Righteous.
I’m expecting Great Things today, how about you?!
As we enter this season of thankfulness, I thought it would be good to hear from you, from your corner of the globe and right here close by too. Some of you I hear from regularly, some read but have never commented. What I would love to know is three things:
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Something God has done for you in 2013, what you are most thankful for.
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What you want to see accomplished in your spiritual walk in 2014.
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How you and your family will be celebrating the Thanksgiving Holiday if at all.
Mention what state or country you are from. You can email me your response to ynannette@gmail.com . I would like to use the information in my Thanksgiving post and show what God has been doing around the world! I will only use first names so you don’t have to worry about confidentiality. But if you do not even want me to use your name at all, please say so in your post and I will respect your wishes.
This will be a great blessing! I hope you will take a couple of minutes and answer the questions for me. I love and appreciate every one of you. These last eight months have been some of the most rewarding of my life and I thank you for being a part of the journey.
Sharing with Let’s Get Social Sunday, The Weekend Brew, Sunday Sync, Sunday Stillness, Proverbs 31 Monday, Motivation Monday, Inspire Me Monday, Amaze me Monday, Expecting Great Things, Modest Mondays, Monday Praises, Teach Me Tuesdays
So true Rosey…I have a post I wrote several months ago that is the most popular on the blog titled “If God Has Forgiven Me, Why Can’t I Forgive Myself?” They seem to accept the fact that God can forgive them but cannot bring themselves to let it go. Satan is a great deceiver. I am thankful for Grace!! Thank you for Super Sunday Sync!! I am fairly new but I am sure enjoying it! Blessings…
Thank you for sharing your blessings with me today! I appreciate you taking the time to comment and answer the survey! How blessed you are!!!
I have a fondness for nurses, my middle son is an RN too. Bless you for your giving spirit. Overworked, underpaid! Thank you for your sacrifice.
I love your tradition too! We always go around the room and each one tells what they are thankful for. It’s a teary-eyed time!
I pray you have a blessed holiday with your family whenever you get to celebrate.
In 2013: God showed us a clear path to understanding some major health issues I was having… and then sent us a much longed for 8th child! (Little man is healthy and perfect and will make his entrance into the world sometime in January 2014!)
Spiritual walk in 2014: Continue growing in my walk, continue encouraging the children to grow closer as well. More daily Bible studies with the children, plus we are learning Hebrew this school year!
Celebrating: as a nurse, I tend to work on Thanksgiving. However, we have a family ritual of writing down things we are “thankful for” all during the month of November and putting them in a jar. Once we have our “Thanksgiving” dinner (even if it is on a different day), we take them out and read them!
Thank you for stopping by! We have to choose…so true! Blessings!
That was beautiful Joseph! Thank you so much for sharing!
Thank you Barbie for sharing your Thanksgiving praises! What a wonderful testimony of God’s provision of employment! Praise God! I wish you joy on your journey as you read the Bible through in 2014. I did it in 2012 and am aggravated with myself I did not accomplish it this year. And I just know you will prepare your first Thanksgiving meal with fabulous fanfare! Blessings friend! ♥
I am so thankful for God’s grace, although often times I feel unworthy to receive it.
1. Something God has done for me in 2013? Provided my husband with a job after 3 years of unemployment!
2. What I want to see accomplished in my spiritual walk in 2014? Read the Bible through in a year, and have a more consistent intimate time with the Lord each day.
3. How will I be celebrating Thanksgiving? A small gathering with just my children. First time I will be cooking!
Have a beautiful week!
Thank you Nannette for posting here about grace. Its God’s great good given to us by Him and its our opportunity to respond to that good without putting our mind and religion to it. Its that awesome knowledge of knowing that He did everything for us without us being required to do anything at all except to live to please Him according to His will in Christ Jesus. Paul said …its no longer i living but Jesus Christ living in me, meaning we have surrendered out lives to the direction of Jesus Christ through the the Holy Spirit of God indwelling in our lives. The law of works is powerless before such a life or living. The law has showed us what is wrong (Rom 7 : 7) we now no longer need to live a life of seeking to know what is wrong continuously but to live a life that is out poured into us by Jesus Christ! Thank you Lord Jesus!!
It’s so hard to accept that grace is givven to us from God. In the flesh, we have to go through so many hoops but spiritually God is there with Grace and Mercy. We just have to CHOOSE to accept this. This was a beautiful post.
I think ti’s so hard for so many people to accept forgiveness and reward/favor. Grace is a beautiful thing.
Thank you for linking to Super Sunday Sync.