What Can I Say?

Philips, Craig and Dean have a song call Your Grace Still Amazes Me

Here's some of the lyrics.

"My faithful Father, enduring friend
Your tender mercy is like a river with no wind
It overwhelms me, covers my sin
Each time I come into your presence I stand in wonder once again

Your grace still amazes me
Your love is still a mystery
Each day I fall on my knees
'cause your grace still amazes me
Your grace still amazes me

Oh patient savior, you make me whole
You are the author and the healer of my soul
What can I give you lord what can I say
I know there's no way to repay you only to offer you my praise"

If we are honest, and here and now I am, we don't go through a day without some sort of wounds.  We get scraped, bruised, sometimes beaten down by people or events.

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Philippians 2:12b–13

Think about that passage in light of what you are going through.  Think about the fact that if we are doing as He says that there's going to be hurts, pains and sometimes suffering because we choose to obey Jesus.   Paul was warned by many that the path of his life was going to be distressing. Bound and in jail if he persisted in heading for Jerusalem.  He knew.  But he also discerned that the warnings only served to tell him to prepare.  Be on the alert.  Jesus stood by him to tell him not to be afraid, don't hold back.

In prison or not, those who suffer because of doing what Jesus wants of them have every right to praise God.  We deserve Hell as everyone else who has been born into sin deserves.  Yet for the believer, God's grace - His unmerited favor - covers.  It wipes away the guilt, the judgment, the condemnation of sin. As the song says, it amazes me.  How much worse is sin than I understand it to be!  It was so repulsive and disgusting that the Father couldn't look at His own Son!

Trials will come. Temptations at every turn.  Another artist had a song about the highway that leads to Heaven.  That it's no easy ride. There are all kinds of exits to take you off your path.

Temptation is never a roadside neon sign saying "Here's one!"  Temptation is soft, delicate, delicious and inviting.  It's intent is to lure you in.  It's chains are made of silk yet to those within them it's like iron.
They don't think that the bond can be broken. 

But Grace.  Go back to that.  The grace bestowed upon those who believe. 
When grace is applied to the believer, the Father only sees Jesus, not us.  He sees all that we can be and will be over time.

There's many who are going through oh so rough a patch of road.  Grace sustains.

“Just stand still and watch the LORD rescue you today.” Exodus 14:13 NLT

Consider that...not every fight we face is ours to fight.  As Spurgeon wrote for today, often it's just for us to stand still.

Grace helps with that.  When we realize how far His favor reaches in the good and bad times, standing is what we need to do until God either removes the obstruction in front of us or makes a new road.

Oh my dear reader, grace, God's unmerited favor, is what held Jesus on that cross.

With a thought, He had the power to obliterate the universe but didn't because His love for you was that great.  His love for you made Him stand in the gap between judgment from the Father and you. Judgement because sin demands it. The wages of sin, what you get from it, is death.  A permanent death sentence.  All mankind is born as dead men and women walking. It was because of what Adam and Eve did that brought that. It's the consequences of them sinning.  But God couldn't leave us like that.  He prepared a way and stuck to it.  He who new no sin became sin on our behalf.  Grace was bestowed. 

Think about the fact that Jesus cried out with a loud voice!  Satan was ecstatic!  He was fist pumping, he was jumping up and down.  He was celebrating!  He had done it! He had won! It took 33 years to put a stop to this 'Plan'.

Then came the words he didn't want to hear. "It is finished!"  Consider that all it would have taken for Jesus to have given up was to say nothing. He could have cried out something else to put a stop to it all.  After all he was beaten, bruised all over, a crown of thorns was beat onto his already wounded head. He had stakes driven through His body into a cross. Which was unceremoniously dropped into a socket in the ground.  His body had long since stopped sweating, blood was dripping.  A thought.  All it would take is a thought and it all could go away.  The anguish could go away.  Seeing His earthly Mother broken.  Seeing the people He loved...which actually was everyone including those who were against Him.
Yet in all that...a single thought of His could have ended everything...He chose to bestow Grace.  In the moment of time when He could have saved Himself, He could have put His own wishes before all of us, He chose to save us. He believed His Father that should He go through with this, that He would yet again take back up that which He lay aside to go through this.

Satan was crushed.  Literally.  His rejoicing was ended. He was enraged.  How could it be?  Yet it was.

So what does he do? Go after everyone whom Jesus taught.  Try to squash this before it gets started.  Put an end to this Plan.  Yet God's empowerment through the Spirit prevails.  Grace prevails. 

To frustrate you and keep you from learning that Grace is meant for you is what's on his agenda.

It's still a mystery to me of what could possibly be within me that Jesus could love. I see my sin. I see my life. But no, I really don't.  Jesus sees me, sees my life as it will be. Because of His work, I will become what He died and arose again to make possible.

Don't see it in your life?  Are you saved?  If not, why not?  Jesus is your answer.  Come to Christ while you still can.  You found this blog, look up Romans Road in Google.  Find the peace you have struggled to find but couldn't put into words.

Someone asked Jesus how much do you love me?
He stretched out His hands and died.

Then came back 3 days later to say, Come, follow Me...