Today I'm grateful for the multiple layers of grace.  Grace shows up in different ways for different people and at different times.  I've been thinking a lot about grace lately.  How I extend it, how I receive it, how it shows up in my day when I didn't even know I needed it, how God gifts us with it.  How have you seen grace in your life recently?

Sparks will fly as grace collides with the dark inside of us.   Tenth Avenue North This is what I imagine it looks like when grace collides with the dark inside of me.  Just like when a welder touches his blowtorch to the metal.  When the heat collides with the cold sparks fly.  Grace is the heat that causes sparks to fly when it is allowed to touch the dark and cold places in my life.  I need grace, so do you.   It is what begins to melt the cold and what lights up the dark so that we can be changed.  Remaining in that dark and cold place means I am unyielding, hardened, unusable.  Allowing grace to touch me means I am willing to be shaped and used.  So when the sparks start flying I know good things are coming.  Sparks flying tells me that grace has touched me.  

A Story About Forgiveness At that point Peter got up the nerve to ask, “Master, how many times do I forgive a brother or sister who hurts me? Seven?” Jesus replied, “Seven! Hardly. Try seventy times seven. “The kingdom of God is like a king who decided to square accounts with his servants. As he got under way, one servant was brought before him who had run up a debt of a hundred thousand dollars. He couldn’t pay up, so the king ordered the man, along with his wife, children, and goods, to be auctioned off at the slave market. “The poor wretch threw himself at the king’s feet and begged, ‘Give me a chance and I’ll pay it all back.’ Touched by his plea, the king let him off, erasing the debt. “The servant was no sooner out of the room when he came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him ten dollars. He seized him by the throat and demanded, ‘Pay up. Now!’ “The poor wretch threw himself down and begged, ‘Give me a chance and I’ll pay it all back.’ But he wo...

As far as I can tell the only way to fall from grace is to trip over religion.   Gwen Tennant-Ketchum My friend Gwen nails it in today's quote.  And I resonate with it because religion is the very thing that is what trips me up in grace.  When I find myself struggling to extend grace, receive grace, be grace I can usually look no further than religion.  Religion forgets relationships, it forgets flexibility, it forgets that sometimes *it* isn't black and white but gray.  Religion acts better than others, "high and mighty", and as judge and jury.  So when I find myself tripping up on grace I know that somehow religion has gotten in my way.   The Pharisees in the Bible are role models for religion tripping up grace.  They clashed with Jesus all the time over issues of grace.  It's unfortunate that I can relate to them a little too well.  Hang around me long enough and you'll hear me call myself a "recovering pharisee".  I say "rec...

We can't outlive our lives if we can't get beyond our biases.   Max Lucado I've been thinking a lot about biases lately.  We all have them and if you deny that you have them you are, well, a liar!  :)  Seriously.  We all have biases about a variety of things.  I decided a few weeks ago to challenge one of the many biases I have.  Have you ever done that?  Have you ever purposely sought out information on the opposing view so that your bias can be reformed or strengthened?  It can be tough because in the search to understand the bias (opinion) opposite ours we are usually required to examine the parts of our own bias that aren't 100% accurate.  Nobody likes to concede to the "other side".  It requires humility to see through your own bias and acknowledge the opposite.  It requires grace to be in relationship with those who hold opposite biases than you (on the controversial topics, I'm not at all referring to the silly little...

Stars can't shine without darkness.   Unknown True fact.  We can't see the stars until there is darkness.  And the beauty of darkness is that there are stars that shine.  So even in darkness we have a little bit of light.  There's always a little bit of light (i.e. hope, faith, etc).  Grace gives us pinpoints of light in the dark.  Look for them.  Be grateful for them.  I'm going to take it a step further and say be grateful for the dark which enables those pinpoints of light to shine.  We wouldn't see them or be aware of them otherwise.  And those stars hold treasure for us.  They are hidden by light and are only revealed by darkness.  This is what came to mind in relation to today's quote..." I will give you hidden treasures,  riches stored in secret places,  so that you may know  that I am the  Lord ,  the God of Israel, who summons you by name." (Isaiah 45:3)  Some treasures we will only...

You find out if you understand the gospel when you fail. Approach the throne of grace with confidence? Or go away to “clean yourself” before going back to God? If we don’t approach the throne of grace boldly after sinning, we don’t understand or we forgot the Gospel.   Matt Chandler Newsflash:  you can't get clean enough before approaching God.  You can't.  So don't even try.  Just go. And go BOLDLY. Hebrews 4:16 tells us we can.  Actually Hebrews 4:14-16 tells us why we can go as dirty as we might be before God - because God gets it.  He's experienced all that we have but stopped at the point of sinning.  (He had to or else he couldn't be our Savior.)  So he gets the temptations, the doubts and fears that lead us down roads we didn't think we would ever travel, the moment of insanity in which we do something that leads us down a spiraling staircase.  He gets it and he doesn't condemn us for it...when we come to him.  But we can'...