ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE ACCEPTED

“To the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.”  (Ephesians 1:6-7 NKJV)

Paul Tillich writes, “You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you… Do not try to do anything now; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!”

Accept that you are accepted. In the moment that grace strikes, grace conquers sin. Lingering guilt that has grown tumor-like for years in the dark recesses of a person's soul can lose its deathly power. Grace helps us face the truth about ourselves, to embrace it rather than run from it; and by embracing this truth and offering it to God, we discover that God will shape us from this day forward anew. God's been waiting for us, desiring us to let Him in. Can we accept that we are accepted? 

-- Robert Schnase in “Five Practices of Fruitful Living”

#6459

JESUS’ LOVE DRAWS US NOW

I cannot prove to you that Jesus will accept you, should you come into His presence to let down your guard. I can tell you that the whole character of Jesus as we meet Him in the Gospels suggests this kind of love. "Come to Me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest," said Jesus in a famous passage (Matthew 11:28).  I can tell you as well that this love has been true for me and others… In Jesus' presence we may safely drop our strengths and reveal our weakness…

It takes faith, in the presence of all the voices that condemn us, to open up the old wounds before God. Jesus' love… draws us now. One elicits the other: faith and forgiving love. They circle around each other in glorious harmony.

I wish you the courage to enter that loop and be swept up in the healing love of Jesus. 

-- Gerrit Scott Dawson in “Heartfelt”

#6400

BEING RECONCILED TO GOD

I asked people in our congregation about their struggles with forgiveness… I had a conversation with a woman in her fifties who said to me, “I’ve never told anyone this before, but when I was in my twenties I got pregnant. I was scared and decided to have an abortion. But after the abortion, I calculated the date the child would have been born, and every year for the last thirty years during that month, I think about the child I might have had.”

It was clear that this woman still carried a burden, even thirty years later. It was not wrong for her to remember the baby she aborted, but even in that case, God longs for the woman to know His grace and forgiveness. Each of us has done things we regret and cannot change. We cringe or even cry when we think of them. And yet often we carry these burdens unnecessarily. We fail to trust that God “is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Psalm 103:8), and that “as far as the east is from the west, so far shall He remove our sins from us” (Psalm 103:12). Through it all, God’s message to us remains the same: Stop carrying the burden yourself. Let Me take it. Be reconciled to Me.

This is the thing to remember: God has already agreed to that reconciliation. Paul Tillich, in one of his sermons, said that the bottom line of faith is accepting God’s acceptance of you. When you turn to God and long to be with Him, He is already reaching out, waiting for you with open arms. God has done everything necessary for your forgiveness, and He offers that forgiveness freely. All you have to do to gain this grace -- grace that came at such a terrific price -- is to accept it. 

-- Adapted from “Forgiveness: Finding Peace Through Letting Go” by Adam Hamilton

#6189

WHAT’S SO AMAZING ABOUT GRACE? – Part 2

“For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit.”  (1 Peter 3:18 RSV)

“But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions -- it is by grace you have been saved.”  (Ephesians 2:4-5 NIV)

Grace is God as a heart surgeon, cracking open your chest, removing your heart -- poisoned as it is with pride and pain -- and replacing it with His own. Rather than tell you to change, He creates the change. Do you clean up so that He can accept you? God accepts you and then begins cleaning up. His dream isn’t just to get you into heaven but to get heaven into you. What a difference this makes! Can’t forgive your enemy? Can’t face tomorrow? Can’t forgive your past? Christ can, and He is on the move, aggressively budging you from graceless to grace-shaped living. The gift-given giving gifts. Forgiven people forgiving people. Deep sighs of relief. Stumbles aplenty but despair seldom.

Grace is everything Jesus. Grace lives because He does, works because He works, and matters because He matters. He placed a term-limit on sin and danced a victory jig in a graveyard. To be saved by grace is to be saved by Him -- not by an idea, doctrine, creed, or church membership, but by Jesus Himself, who will sweep into heaven anyone who so much as gives Him the nod. 

-- Max Lucado in “Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine”

#5671

GOD’S UNEARNED GRACE

“God saved you by His grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.”  (Ephesians 2:8-9 NLT)

Thank God that He doesn't make us finish some sort of spiritual ["to do"] list before He accepts us. As the old hymn title summarizes so well, He accepts me "just as I am."

That's the uniquely Christian message of grace. Unlike other faith traditions where a person must do good works to earn God's favor, we as Christians understand that we do good works precisely because God favors us in spite of ourselves and our sin. 

-- Matt Donnelly, ChristianityToday.com

#5398 

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE IT!

“He has saved us and called us to a holy life -- not because of anything we have done but because of His own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”  (2 Timothy 1:9-10 NIV)

Never underestimate the love of God to accept you. And never underestimate the power of God to change you. The cross demonstrated God's love. The resurrection demonstrated God's power. The only thing stronger than God's love and power is our human will. God will not overwhelm us with His power, or even with His love, unless we invite Him to. Once we do, we will be amazed at the extent of His love in Jesus Christ and of His power through the Holy Spirit. Never underestimate it! 

-- Rev. David T. Wilkinson

#5334

YOU ARE ACCEPTED

“Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through who we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand.”  (Romans 5:1-2a)

It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you… Do not try to do anything now; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!” If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. 

-- Paul Tillich in “The Shaking of the Foundations”

#5295

LIGHT BREAKS INTO DARKNESS

“The people walking in darkness
    have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
    a light has dawned.”  (Isaiah 9:2 NIV)

Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness.  It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life.  It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual…when our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us… Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying, "You are accepted."

-- Paul Tillich in “The Shaking of the Foundations”


#4738