The Life of Grace or The Life of Striving, You Choose

It has nothing to do with who I am, or what I do, and it has everything to do with who He is and what He did.

October 15

I watched a video today by John Lynch called True-Faced. The idea is that we have two different ways we can live. One way is striving to be all God wants us to be. The idea is, I keep working on my sin so that I can achieve an intimate relationship with God. Proving my worth based on what I get to do. I'm trying to please God. With everything in me I'm working hard so that one day I can hear, " Well done good and faithful servant."

The other way of living is simply trusting God. I say simply, but somehow it feels complicated and hard. Because there's nothing I can do to attain it, it feels elusive. It was something He freely did for me. It has nothing to do with who I am, or what I do, and it has everything to do with who He is and what He did. It's trying to learn how to live out of who God says I am. Living a life of humility and confidence. God says I am whole. God says that I am righteous. God says that I'm holy. God says that I'm His. There is nothing I can do that would make God love me more and there's nothing I can do that could make Him love me less. This is living the life of Grace.

John Lynch talks about wearing a mask and hiding. That's what Adam did when he first sinned, he hid from God. And we've been doing the same thing ever since. But with God, we get to take the mask off. We get to truly be ourselves. Lonely, afraid, angry, confused, sad, we also get to be joyful, proud, and alive. We get to be so happy we feel like we're going to burst. I realized today that God doesn't want us to repent and confess our sins for His sake. He already knows what we did. He already knows how we fell short. But when we tell Him, and He loves us despite our failings, we feel safe and He starts to heal our hearts. The more we reveal the deepest parts of ourselves, the things we don't want anyone to know, sometimes we're even hiding it from ourselves, we open up and we show him the ugliness that can be inside, the more power we take away from sin. Our Heavenly Father smiles and says, “I know and I love you.”

He's proud of how vulnerable we've just been. And that's when these dark and ugly things lose their power over us. It's like we've been blackmailed by sin. And as soon as we tell God, the blackmailer loses all his power. The bible talks about sin more like a person than just an action. God told cane that sin was crouching at the door. We are not sinners. We are saints who sometimes sin. The more I give to God my greatest failings the stronger The Holy Spirit becomes in my life. In my weakness He is strong. I'm understanding these ideas more and more. And one day soon I hope to be living in the life of Grace instead of the life of striving. So I saw God today as He was revealing this to me and telling me He loves me. He was reminding me that there is nothing I can do to make him love me more, and there's nothing I can do to make him love me less.

I love you too Lord.