Astonishing Acts of Grace

I get the feeling once in a while that God is just waiting for the right moment to burst into peoples’ lives with the awesome and wonderful message -- YOU REALLY CAN BE  ALIVE IN YOUR LIFE.

Every once in a while I get overwhelmed at just how good God has been to me and of the fact that I am just one in multiple millions of people who could and do say the same thing. 

Just the other day it happened.  It was about 10:30 in the evening and I found myself crying out, "Oh my goodness; my whole life is an underserved act of amazing grace." It just hit me hard that  I am forgiven of my sins.  I am loved by the God of the universe; embraced by the One person who, knowing me through and through and better than anybody else does, still dares to love me and to care for me and to lavish His grace on my life.

Who would have thought it?  Who saw it coming?  With the majority of my life behind me I can still say, "I'M ALIVE!  I'M ALIVE! I'M ALIVE."  Grace surrounds me.  Love envelopes me.  Mercy permeates me.  I deserved nothing and got God.  Who would have thought it? 

God's Joy fills me.  God's peace saturates me.   God's patience is molding me.  God's kindness is shaping me.  God's goodness is guiding me.  God's faithfulness motivates me.  God's gentleness holds me steady.  God's self-control is being worked out in the deep places of my very own life.  My whole life is an undeserved act of grace.

This is huge because what God is doing He is doing for everyone who will receive Him.  Along with millions of other Christians, the passion of my life is to tell the story of God to others so that the unbelievable incomparable, astonishing, wonderful and amazing grace of God can embrace their lives, no matter where they may find themselves in these days. 

The Good News of Jesus is life transforming.  It connects with people right where they are and sets them free to live and move and have their being from within the embrace of the love of God. 

Life gets redefined and becomes filled with meaning.  Persons become filled with purpose and value.  Relationships find healing, renewal and help.  Old things pass away and new things come into the life of people who have connected their lives with the life of God in Jesus Christ. (See 2 Corinthians 5:17).

What a humbling and yet tremendous call to be one in hundreds of thousands and millions of people that are seeking to connect people with God.  We get to be ambassadors of Christ in a world in need of Him.  We are recipients of amazing grace and we believe that hope can re-emerge in people; that the future can be better than the past, and that tomorrow can be totally different and profoundly better than yesterday.

We get to live for God who loves us all so much that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

It can't get any better than that.  And the best is still yet to come.