IS HIS GRACE REALLY SUFFICIENT?

Is His grace really sufficient? Well, I don't know..what is grace...what is His grace? I've always been taught that grace, in a nutshell, is God's favor for His children. So when I'm told that His grace is sufficient, then I'm being told that His favor towards me is sufficient for my life to be lived in a fine enough way that I'll make it...not without trials and tribulations, but that I'll make it.

It's a cold and rainy night...no that's not the first line of a new horror novel I'm writing. It's just cold and raining and gloomy and dark. I'm thinking about all the homeless people who are finding a mission, a cheap motel, a bridge, or a cardboard box to get in for the night. I look at myself and see that I have a brightly lit, warm, comfortable, "sufficient" home to be in on this cold and rainy night. 

Why do I have this home and how have I kept it for almost 9 years? Well, it's not by my strength...it's not even by my works. It's by God's grace. He is providing this home. He is providing the money for the rent and it's not much, but it's sufficient. I don't have a lot. I don't have a fine home or a fine car but I have what I need and it's sufficient. At the risk of saying the word too much, everything I have at my disposal is sufficient for me to live this life in a fine enough way to make it through.

Every time I go out to start that old jalopy in the driveway, it starts right up. The only times it hasn't (dead battery or such) was on a day that I really didn't need it to start. By God's grace that car has started every night of classes. The long treks to my neurologist in the next city over...I get there every single time. I've not missed one appointment in 4 years. I made it to all of my physical therapy appointments without delay (that car doesn't look like it should be going past my mailbox). God's grace is the reason for that.

I believe that God expects us to meet Him halfway. I don't take what He does for granted. I don't sit back eating bon bons and expect a miracle to fall in my lap, or groceries, or anything else that requires my attention. In so doing my part I find the Lord meeting me halfway. Oh how many times I've cried and wailed for thinking it was all about to crash down around me and suddenly everything "magically" falls into place. Not in any form that would be considered me having more than my share, but in a way that's fine enough for me to make it through. I just trust Him in my heart of hearts and His heart connects to that. He feels my faith like a ray of light reaching into the heavens where He waits with an open heart. When the ray of faith reaches God, a switch is flipped and all good things begin to flow from Him and into us.

I don't make the mistake of trying to be inhumanly perfect. I also believe that God can't stand a phony. He can't stand people who try to be pious and religiously perfect. He wants our genuine selves. He wants our flaws so He can polish us into a diamond. He wants us to stumble so we reach out to Him so that He can prove that He's the one that can steady us.

He's more than gracious with us. It's no different than when we love to give something of ourselves to another. You know how you purchase a gift and hand pick the wrapping, then run home and lovingly wrap that gift for your kin folk or friend? Remember the feeling that comes with knowing how much they'll love that gift? Remember how it feels knowing you're about to make their day? Now, remember how it feels when that gift is turned down because the person thinks "oh you shouldn't have...I can't accept this...I'm sorry but I can't accept this..it's just too much, take it back but thank you." Your heart is broke because you love that person and you want them to have that gift, no matter the cost. They just don't know how much you wanted to give them that gift. God is like that with us. He just wants to give us His gifts but He never spends more than He should and He never gives us things we can't use. He is thoughtful and gracious with each gift He bestows and all He wants is for us to trust that He knows which ones we'll need or want or love the most and those are the ones He's been waiting on the chance to give us. We just have to accept them. (sorry that sounds so corny).

I said all of that while thinking back to my 20s and early 30s, back to a time when I just wanted to take care of myself and be at peace, no more people telling me what to do in my own house, bullying me around, or holding me back from doing what I need or want to do, that which I know will help me as well as others. God has graciously and sufficiently given me that. I have a home, nothing big but comfortable for me. It is two baths and two bedroom even though I really only need one of each, but God in His wisdom and sufficient grace made that way early on so that I'd have a place to start storing baby stuff for my grandchildren. He's put me back in school, which was a dream I've always had. I used to drive past the college and look longingly at it, sigh deeply, and sadly think, "I wish I could go back to school." (The truth is that I wanted to do high school over but that's just not allowed, hahaha).

That's only the start of how sufficiently God has provided for me. Every day, in every area of my life where it's needed and reasonable. How has God blessed you and how do you see that it's actually quite sufficient?

DO NOT LOSE SIGHT OF WHAT HE DID!

I had such a sweet time in the Lord this morning. There's actually a special quality or unique circumstance to this, in my opinion.

It's been a long time since I've attended a church service. There's a reason for that. Although I spent years in church and faithful service attendance, there was always an inherent knowing that it wasn't supposed to be that way. I always knew in my spirit that it was more of a "man's objective" to get me there than it was ever God's objective. I felt obligated to go because I was being preached to that God is worthy and expects our devotion and that "if I love Him then I'll want to come." It's funny how none of those preachers ever considered that each of us are spoken to separately by God and that what God says to one He may not be saying to another. I suppose none of them ever considered that this one Christian was sitting in that pew thinking, "But I love Him with all my heart and I can tell you with that same whole heart that I don't want to be here."

Was every service a miserable time? No..of course not! I had many great moments in the Spirit but that never overcame the feeling that I was not commanded of God in any way to attend church. If that was God's objective with His children,wouldn't church either be designed as a home thing for all those who can't get out of bed due to being handicapped; or wouldn't He have made the way for nobody to ever be so sick they couldn't attend?

It was never about anything other than what I knew in my heart which lined up with the scriptures. "Whom the Son has made free is free indeed," and "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, thus saith the Lord."

They say that you're not growing if you're not asking questions. If you refuse to change or you never question anything, then you're swayed by every doctrine and word of man that comes along. I began to realize that I wasn't dragging myself into Sunday services all those years because God wanted me there. If He did, He certainly was doing very little or nothing at all to fill me with the desire to do so. Did I ever consider that it was intended to be a sacrifice on my end, sure I did, but I still hated it and loved God and so therein lied the contradiction in my soul. I knew I had to change it and get my soul to line up with the Word. I decided to stop attending and if God was going to be upset with me for it, He would do what needed to be done within me to put me right. I woke that first Sunday and didn't go to church. But guess what happened? I felt His same presence and the knowing that I was loved and accepted of God as always had. I felt no conviction, no fear that I had done wrong, just peace. 

That was almost a year ago and I am changed very little. I have slipped up once or twice and used a potty word whereas I was stronger than that while in church. I have examined that and sought out the reasons for that change to take place. I know it's because I'm not surrounded by my fellow Christians and their prayers but have been forgotten of them (as none of them ever sought me when I just quit showing up after 5 years of being a permanent fixture in the second row on the left). I was also educated in the words of the Bible enough to know that one falls away and goes back to the hog pens of the world. I understood that concept. But I had not done that. The devil tried to tell me I had, but what I actually had done was allowed a weak moment of emotion to take me over and I spouted off a word unkind. Not quite the same as returning to the hog pens from which the Lord had delivered me.

Here's the great part! I worried that the lies the enemy whispered were true and he was successful at making me feel conflicted. But true to form, God rose up and took care to see to me. He understands us when we venture off and is like the father of any toddler, rushing over to take that child by the arm if they get to far away. 

Here's how religion works: 

• Show up for church service on Sunday at 9:00 a.m. Faithful attendance is important for appearances.
• If you really want to fit in, wear your dress but not too low cut, and the hem can't be too high or you'll be frowned upon, you trollop. 
• Sing your hymns and quote your scriptures. This makes you appear pious and godly.
• Sing in the choir, volunteer in the kitchen, or to go out and knock on doors. This shows what a good worker for the Lord you are.
• Give your tithe because there's no way God can keep the building lit without your money. Remember, it's your way of giving back all that He gives to you (even though that's not the heart of Jesus to get back what He gives).

But here's how spirituality and being with God in a personal relationship works: 

• Get up on a Sunday morning realizing that if you're not perfect and that God will not cast you away from Him if you don't go to church and conform to the church crowd's ways.
• You can boast in your weakness for Jesus already did the work on the cross. 
• If you're truly saved then it's not by anything you do but by the grace of God that you go forward. 
• Trust His Spirit to speak to you and guide you. 
• He's there at all times so if you're on the wrong path or doing the wrong thing, He's going to let you know and as the Bible says, "it's hard to kick against the pricks." 
• If He has a message for you, a healing, or anything along those lines, He knows how to get that message to you.
• When you fail, nobody is going to call you names like "backslider."
• Realize that if you read the Bible to be following the rules, you'll never receive the message He has for you because you're in the way.
• God has provided you with what you need to live daily, realize that He wouldn't ask you to give that back to Him if He has given it to you. It pleasures Him to give. God's very nature of grace and grace is bestowed. He loves to love us!
• Be in touch with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It comes in simple knowledge of good and bad, right and wrong. Follow that which is good and God will add to you in your decisions. If you follow after the wrong thing, He'll just be there to remind you of who you are in Christ and gently guide you back on the path, but again, it's not by your deeds that He will do a new thing. It's always about Him and what He can do in and through us.

Now, here's where God just does what He does for His children without our help. I woke up, the same as every Sunday for the past year, but this time I felt compelled. I was compelled by God to go online and find The Resurrection Fellowship Church of Loveland Colorado . First, I couldn't remember to save my life what the name of it was. Our blogger Christian sister Monica of the blog "Wandering Heart" , had recommended "The Rez" to me (above link) months ago. I couldn't remember the name of it, the town it was in, or the pastors name but I had a lot of worship time with them so it was odd that I couldn't remember. Suddenly, the Lord says, "Google Colorado churches" and then I heard Him say, "Loveland" which is the town it's in, bingo. I logged in and He flooded me with His Spirit. I worshiped as I hadn't in a long time and felt His sweet presence as we communed. It just so happened to be their communion service online. I got to watch their live broadcast, which incidentally had only just begun when I logged on. I didn't even know what time it was. Another indicator that it was His desire for me is that I usually study until 3 a.m. and sleep until about 11 a.m., but this morning the clocks fell back and I woke early for no reason. That put my rising at around 9 a.m., the same time the church service began online. I was just going to open the website and find a sermon of God's choosing. Instead, they had just started the live feed. It was immensely sweet! Tears streamed down my face, I couldn't stop weeping, He was just with me and through me. 

That's a spiritual connection, not a religious one. I add that I've been praying under my breath for weeks that God would touch me, and He did! See, I didn't have to be in church. I just had to be with God in my heart and soul and He reached out to me for the sole purpose of giving.

In closing, I say that when God calls, He calls. It's never about our efforts. That's where the devil steers us wrong and into our own ways. It's counter-indicative of what Jesus did on that cross. He died to set us free from ourselves and yet millions of Christians think they should "do" something in order to find God on a daily basis, or to be whole, or to be right, etc. Now, if you're called into a ministry, yes...for sure...do what you're compelled to do for that's your place if you feel sure and convicted that it's the right thing. But I would tell you that if you're a Christian and you don't think church is for you, then it's okay for you not to go. God is still going to love you and use you, and visit you, and speak to you because it's not about us and our works, it's about HIM and HIS. It's always been about HIS love for us and what HE does to show us grace and mercy when we fail. If we continue to try to do things to be right then we will miss the mark and lose sight of what Jesus did on the cross to make us all free! 

Blessings and hugs to you all!