All Is Grace!

Dear Friends,

One of my heroes, Brennan Manning, titled his autobiography, All Is Grace. His book tells us that Brennan has lived it, experienced it, and grasps the extraordinary power of God’s great gift. At the beginning of my journey with God, I did not understand this gift as well as I do now. I also have found that many of the people I have dealt with in this journey do not understand and fully appreciate living under God’s grace. Part of the danger of not being able to grasp what an extraordinary gift we have available to us is that we believe the lies that our enemy has successfully spread among us.

Two of these lies are: First, God does not love you as you are. Second, God’s grace is based on your works. These two lies continue to have a profound impact on how we live in our walk with God. I want to speak to these lies. First, God loves you as you are, not as you should be. And God’s grace is vast, unmeasured, boundless, and free.

I was in conversation with a friend recently and in the course of our sharing with each other I said, “I am so incredibly blessed I can hardly grasp it.” When I said this I thought about the journey God has had me on this 40 plus years. The miracles I’ve seen, the places I’ve been, and the people I’ve met were all possible because of God’s grace. In addition, I have lived under His protection, provision, guidance, and teaching.

But I can safely say that for much of this journey I did not fully understand the extraordinary power of God’s grace. Fortunately, I believe that is no longer true. Yes, there is still much to learn and understand about His grace, but now I am aware of and appreciate His grace as never before.

What about you? When you think about your journey with God are you able to grasp the extraordinary power of His grace? It is so easy for us to live under these lies I wrote about earlier. We are a people who put a lot of emphasis on work and can easily judge others by what they do, what they produce. For example, when we first meet someone, after we ask for their name, we then ask, “What do you do?” We want to know where they are in the pecking order, which may determine how we treat them, or even whether or not we want to be their friend. Where is the grace of God in this? Our love without God’s grace is not boundless, and free.

Part of the reason I am writing about this topic is that I had to step back and think about my journey with God and try to grasp how His extraordinary grace has empowered and protected me. My challenge to you is this: stop for a moment and think about your journey and appreciate how God’s grace has been instrumental in your life up to this point. He has been there through the good times and the rough times for He says in His Word, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Joshua 1:5, Hebrews 13:5).

It is both reassuring and exciting to look to the future in our own personal journey and know that God’s grace is always there.

If YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A GIFT FOR A FRIEND, CONSIDER ONE OF MY BOOKS

Before You Get Here, Subtitled, Baggage To Drop On Your Way To Heaven, is a guide to assist in discovering freedom from the invisible burdens that oppress and defeat many Christians today.

Chapters include: The Importance of Forgiveness, The Traps of Unforgiveness, A Look in the Mirror, I Will Never, Harmful Words and Harmful Connections, Let Yourself Be Loved By God, The Recovery of Intimacy, and more. Available here on our website and at Amazon.com.

For a copy of my book Before You Get Here go to our Wholeness Ministries Catalog.

This has been both a blessed and challenging year for us at Wholeness Ministries. Thank you for your continued gifts and prayers over this last year and in the year to come. We are indeed a blessed people.

God bless,

Mike

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