What’s Required to Experience God’s Grace
Lately, slowly, I have been going through a study called, “Seeking Him,” by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth & Tim Grissom.
I originally started this study back in 2014, when I was facing a dry period in my faith in God. In other words, during times of loneliness & isolation, it being my first move across the globe (Guam), I had a hard time feeling God’s presence.
It hurt because I was looking to the end of my struggle as my hope, rather than dumping my cares & burdens at God’s feet & asking Him to be my Enough IN the storm I was facing.
And so, starting this study was my desperate push to feel God’s presence in my dessert. But, when I began this study all those years ago, knowing it called for personal revival, I was not willing to face how poorly I was handling my pain… I just wanted a quick fix.
I didn’t realize then that revival of your heart means being willing to come clean, repent of your wrongs, & fall back under God’s wonderful, beautiful, all-fulfilling grace.
I Shut the Book & Never Looked Back… Until Now
This study doesn’t play around. Right from the start, this study has you get real with yourself & let me tell you that it wasn’t too pretty. My stubborn self reared back from it & wanted to plug my ears & hum out any hint of the self-condemnation I was feeling.
That’s about when I shut the book & never looked back… until now.
Fast forward to a couple months ago, when I began this study again, & having those same questions presented for my response… only to see myself still agreeing with my sin struggles from 7 years ago!
Shame & guilt & self-condemnation began to flood me again, pride began to rear up in defense, & I honestly wanted to close the book again & donate it immediately, once & for all, to the thrift store for someone else to deal with.
Avoiding the Truth
I didn’t want to be told I needed to change. I wrestled with legalism & felt like I would never be good enough. Satan whispered hate into my heart, telling me to stop fooling myself & to stop mocking God by continuing to return to God each time I failed… telling me I didn’t deserve grace, OBVIOUSLY.
And I was stubborn. Hard-hearted. I didn’t want to listen. I didn’t want to be honest with myself. I wanted to sugar-coat my sin & stay contentedly oblivious in doing life MY way.
Yeah, sure, I have grown a lot & God has been a long-suffering, patient, & always faithful Friend. But I just felt defeated, you know? Like even with all of the growth & all of the change & all of the renewal over the years, I had to face the facts: I was still a failure in so many ways & still so, so weak... & recognizing that fact didn’t feel so great at all.
We CAN’T. That’s the Whole Point!
And that’s when God reminded me that that is pretty much the whole point.
We CAN’T do it on our own. We CAN’T ever be good enough.
We NEED Him. Every day, for the rest of our lives & into our eternity.
This study has been SO HARD. And every other lesson has me taking a deep inhale, stiffening up in defiance, & wanted to shut it & walk away.
But it has been good for me. It has forced me to say, “Not me. Him. I’m not enough. He is. I need Him. I’m not worthy… & yet… JESUS.”
What IS Grace?
This is how this study describes grace:
“If a young man is killed through some random act of violence, & his father tracks down the guilty person & kills him, we would call that vengeance. If, however, the father calls the police & the murderer is arrested, tried, convicted, & executed, we’d call that justice. If, at the trial, the father pleads for the guilty man’s life to be spared & the judge & jury consent, we’d call that mercy.
Now imagine this: in addition to pleading for the guilty one to be spared, the father actually appeals to the judge to release the offender into his custody & care. Miraculously gaining approval, the father takes the young man into his heart & home, adopts him, & raises him & loves him as his own son… that would be grace!” (ps. 86)
What a beautiful picture of how God treats us.
We’re the Offender & Yet God Offers Us GRACE
WE’RE the villain/murderer in this story. We DESERVE wrath. Justice would be us getting what we deserve… to pay the price of wronging God (sin) ourselves.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)
But unlike this story, Jesus pled our case by PAYING OUR DEBT to death, WILLINGLY, & raising again, victorious over our sin AND over death.
And THEN, as if that wasn’t enough already, God ALSO adopts us & cares for us as His own children, offering His wisdom, guidance, gentle discipline, love, strength, & resources to help us throughout our lives.
What a wonderful Savior!
The Subtlety of Pride
Even if you like to justify or prettify your sin, like I do, thinking to yourself, “Well, it’s not murder or other worse sins… so….” (I feel ya! I do it ALL the time), God knows our hearts even better than we do. We can’t fool God.
And pride is the most subtle of them all!
For example, the study mentions a scenario led by pride: insecurity in trying to make friends.
That seemed like such a stretch to me. I mean… how can me feeling insecure around people & in trying to make friends… be an example of PRIDE?
But it goes on to explain that we should not hesitate to show kindness & care for people based on whether or not we think they LIKE us first.
Ouch.
The subtlety of pride!
Lord, Please Continue to Work on My Heart!
And so, I will continue in this study, even if the 12-week set-up takes me 12 months, because I need to face myself & I need to better understand the power of God’s grace in my daily life.
Shine hope by determining to face your sinful attitude & by placing it under the grace of God, asking for His help in determining to weed it out of your life.
Coming Next Week
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