MAGNIFY GRACE

Have you thanked Him?

Have you praised Him?

Have you made it your priority to agree and cooperate with Him today?

Have you taken that deep breath and listened for what He has for you today?

1 Timothy 2:1 (The Message)

1-3The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know.

Ephesians 2:5-10

…we were spiritually dead because of the things we did against God, he gave us new life with Christ. You have been saved by God’s grace. And he raised us up with Christ and gave us a seat with him in the heavens. He did this for those in Christ Jesus so that for all future time he could show the very great riches of his grace by being kind to us in Christ Jesus. I mean that you have been saved by grace through believing. You did not save yourselves; it was a gift from God. It was not the result of your own efforts, so you cannot brag about it. God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus, God made us to do good works, which God planned in advance for us to live our lives doing.

He is the son of a Pastor. He is well spoken and articulate.  He has been blessed with good looks and appealing demeanor.  He delivered a fine talk as a part of drug awareness panel with me in Chillicothe yesterday.  He is a good young man.

And oh by the way he was doing $140.00 of heroin per day 75 days ago.

My friend “J” embodies the grace of Ephesians 5; he magnifies it! 

"J” puts flesh to its promise.  

He was spiritually dead.  Then he embraced Jesus.  This “J”, who knew about grace since he was old enough to hear a sermon from his dad was now “experiencing” grace for the first time. And now “J” fully understands appreciates and embraces this new life, this new hope, this new future resulting from a gift that he most certainly didn’t deserve.

And more importantly “J” has now committed himself to the good work that GOD had planned for him; the good work of helping others avoid or recover from the devastating effects of the chronic plague that is heroin addiction; the good work of MAGNIFYING grace!

I am coming to love my new friend “J”.  I love his DEEP appreciation for the gift.  It inspired me to ask a question of myself and you today. 

Do I (we) appreciate grace?  Do we understand fully that we were destined for eternal death without it?  Do we fully grasp the magnitude its power or its deliverance?  Could we truly imagine a morning without it?

Lamentations 3:22-23 (AMP)

It is because of the Lord’s mercy (grace) and loving-kindness that we are not consumed, because His [tender] compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great and abundant is Your stability and faithfulness.

You have been given your measure of grace this morning.  You were not consumed.

All it took for it to envelope you was opening your eyes to the new dawn and a new day.  What do you plan to do with it today?

Will you be like “J” and express your gratitude by telling someone about its saving and transforming power?  Will you leverage it and incorporate it into the work that GOD has called you to do from your first breath? Will you allow your gift to bring GOD glory today?

Or will we both maybe “take it for granted” again?

Let’s embrace the grace with both hands today!  Let’s share it as we do the work we were called to do today! Let’s be like “J” and magnify GOD’s grace!

“Grace is the pleasure of God to magnify the worth of God by giving sinners the right and power to delight in God without obscuring the glory of God.” ― John Piper

 

Have a grace-inspired day!

I love you all

Freedom Church

 

Pastor GDelaney