Grace in a Coffee Pot

This is a conversation that I get into often so I'm going to write it out. 

If you were asked to describe sin most people answer:

• Things you do that are wrong
• or
• When you do something that God has commanded us not to do.
• or
• I will get a list of different things people may view as sins.

Not that any of the above is incorrect but it's very broad and for 18 years of my life I viewed God as a Big God in Heaven who was sitting up there just waiting for us to screw up so that He could critically jot it down and hold it against us. You do something good, you get on His good side. You do something bad, you get on His bad side. Also, I viewed sins as if they had categories: Big Sins and little sins. 

Big Sins: adultery, Perpetual Stealing, murder, drugs, drinking, perpetual lying, a perpetual thief.

Little Sins: Lying, Cheating, Stealing, disobeying parents etc., etc.

Needless to say my view was ridiculously different from the truth. 

For all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. (Romans 3:23 NIV)

Everyone is a sinner. Everyone has fallen short. We're All in need of a savior. "Big Sin" or "Little Sin" they all separate us from God.

I also used to look at it as a "To-Do List Unto Salvation".  Even though in my mind I would tell you that you couldn't earn your salvation, I still felt the need to walk a tight rope to keep from messing up and losing His favor. 

 

Here is a list of the "To-Do's or "Not To's" that were harped on when I was a Teen and I thought they made me a "better Christian" if I didn't do them. 

Not To:

Sex outside of Marriage

Drugs

Drinking

Sneaking Out

Lying to Parents

Skipping Church

Disrespecting Authority

Not that those things aren't wrong, but not doing them out of fear that you might get on God's bad side or because it gives you a sense of entitlement over other "Christians" who do mess up, is very wrong! 

If following those guidelines gives you a way to feel better about yourself or "at least I didn't do that, God. You must be pretty proud of me."  That is a completely perverse way of viewing sin.

#1: We are NEVER to compare ourselves with others. The "at least I didn't...." We are to compare ourselves ONLY to Christ!  In doing so you will Always Remain Humble.

God does not have a list of rules and regulations in order to keep us hopping and jumping through loop holes to keep from sinning, just so He can laugh and condemn whenever we screw up! He created us! He Loves us, we are screwed up vessels period. Nothing I can do in my own power can change that. Only the grace of God coming into my life and changing my heart can have any power over me.

Think about it this way...

As a wedding present someone bought me this brand new coffee maker and kitchen cleaner all in one. I mean this machine can do everything from making the best pot of coffee, to washing my dishes and scrubbing the floor. It's a brilliant machine.

But when I receive the present I take it out of the box and..."what's this?"  I can't think of a good use for it or a place to put it so I decide to use it as a paper weight on my desk, and sometimes I bang it on the table and open walnuts with it.  I never bothered to read the instruction manual.

My friend who gave it to me comes by a few years later and asks about the machine. I shamefully show her how scratched and marred it is because I didn't know what to do with it. She cleans it up and gets it back to brand new.  Then she shows me the instruction manual.  I'm blown away at all the different functions and uses.

...............................

I know that's a silly analogy but that's how the bible is. Our Creator wrote it.  In it He shows us how we are designed and how we will best function. He also says we are vessels created to worship. Created to bring Him Glory. When our lives are lived in submission to His will, that is our act of worship and that is how we function best.  He also tells us that if our vessels choose to do things which pull us away from Him, we will be miserable. 

When I came to that reality, and I understood Grace and how He took this marred, poorly used, forsaken vessel and cleaned it up; after I did all I could to destroy it, I can no longer look at another person who is in sin with a critical eye.  I now have a truly broken heart. I Desperately want them to know the joy of being made NEW!  I desperately want them to know "yeah, you're screwed up, but you have a Creator that wants to make you new!  You have a creator who desperately wants to clean you up and give you the life you were created to have!" 

John 8 NIV

¹ but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

   ² At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. ³ The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group ⁴ and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. ⁵ In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” ⁶ They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
   But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. ⁷ When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” ⁸ Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
   ⁹ At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. ¹⁰ Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
   ¹¹ “No one, sir,” she said.

   “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Oh my Jesus is full of compassion and mercy! You can't out sin His grace!  When everyone around her was ready to kill her for her offenses - Christ, God in the flesh, had compassion, mercy and forgave her!  Even if you feel no one loves you. No one cares, no one can forgive what you've done. "If they only knew where you've been."  God already knows. He was there! He's the Only One you need forgiveness from. The rest will follow by His grace!

To fellow believers who have found themselves with the same ideology as above please take heart to the following verse.

Colossians 3:12-13 (NIV)

 ¹² Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ¹³ Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

We will not see change around us until we are willing to change ourselves!

His Clay,

Melissa Bradley

 

The Lord of the Pawn

When Christians come to the realization that God's world does not revolve around us, our world is meant to revolve around Him and that the ultimate desire for our lives should be to bring Him glory. Then Cultural christianity will no longer be "the faith poison".

This is a completely different view from what I once thought or believed, but at the same time it is so freeing to realize and understand. Realizing that the world does not revolve around me, and my immediate wants and desires, that there's a much larger picture is very freeing indeed. 

Whether it is through tragedy or triumph, loss or gain, God is in control of my past, present and future. My wants and desires are null is comparison to my life bringing glory to my King.

That does not mean that God does not care when we hurt.  FAR from it.  "The Lord is near to the broken hearted."  "The Lord is compassionate, slow to anger abounding in love and mercy." No, no, no He is very loving indeed.  It means that there is a much greater purpose and we should always be mindful and trust Him with that. 
When you allow your successes or failures to bring you to your knees and for them to bring you to a greater understanding of Who He is, the church will, finally, once again come to a place of revival.

When I am able to take a "Paul and Silas in prison moment" (Acts 16) and instead of sulking, I find myself praising, and declaring, "Lord, I know You have this and one way or the other. You will ultimately be magnified through this". I will know that I have finally Got It.

I find satisfaction in nothing more than being a pawn on God's chess table. He uses me and moves my player in order to bring Himself victory in the game. Whether it is through my pawn being taken out of the game early or even pawns around me. Think about it for a second. It may sound a little strong off the cuff, but think about it. 

If my life is totally surrendered to His ultimate will and He compares His love for us to the love of an "amazing earthly father" but His love is magnified in being a heavenly Father...

Follow me here...

An earthly father wants good things for His children. An earthly father wants to dote on his children, see them smile and be comforted.  In saying that, an earthly father isn't there, at all times, to help guide your steps nor to help map out your path.  An earthly father, even though he wants good things for you, all that he can direct you in, is what he may see in the immediate future.

For instance, "Yes, you should get this college education, at this great school, so that you can receive a great education, become a lawyer, be well off financially and hopefully make a difference. etc. etc." In our logic that may sound like a good plan. Your earthly father knows that you've talked about doing that for a long time and it's what you would like to do with your future.

However, your Heavenly Father made you from scratch, He breathed air into your lungs. He knows your strengths and your weakness's.  He knows the challenges you will face at that school. He knows where the spouse He created for you will be found.  He knows (for instance) that you will get to age 25 and just starting off your career as a lawyer and your heart will be longing to be a wife and mother.  He knows that you would rather die than have to leave your children for your work. He knows that with the debt you will accrue in college it will be an impossibility for you to stay home etc., etc., etc.  He knows your paths.

I'm not saying that if you are a sold out child of God that you won't face challenges. Oh mercy no! But they're different when you come to the "Pawn Realization".  When you face challenges while seeking His direction, continue seeking His direction and accept His Lordship.  Be mindful of His promises and He will guide you through it.  Whether it's by Him shaping your heart and desires towards His will or by accepting that whatever comes my way does not catch Him by surprise and that I can take the moment and reflect on His Grace or I can run hide under my covers and sulk.  He wants to be magnified in our lives.  He wants us to know Him better.  He wants us to know and trust Him for who He is and accept His Lordship in all things.

I am not saying that it's easy, but suffering will come one way or the other and we have the opportunity to surrender it and accept His authority over it and know that somehow, someway He will receive the glory for it or we can diminish His glory by trusting in our idols or pouting, sulking and "Why Me -ing."

I am in No Way trying to diminish people's pain. Please do not read "that" into this. Oh I have so many friends who have endured unimaginable pain. 

I am however trying to magnify Him and put a magnifying glass on our upside down world view, and how He desires to take our brokenness, our ashes and to create them into something beautifully surrendered.

If Paul and Silas had sulked, do you think the other prisoners and guards would have seen Christ in their life?  If Daniel had sulked do you think God would have kept the Lions mouths shut...?  (Daniel 6) Possibly, but I wonder.  If Hannah (1 Sam. 1) would have been pitching a fit, blaming and hollering at God for not giving her a child, do you think He would have chosen her and opened her womb and blessed her with a Samuel.

You see our American Christian World View is WAY off when we think that all His glory is to be pointed at us.  We are not the god's that need to be magnified.  My life is a Pawn in my Masters hand!

I find satisfaction and hope in that. I find satisfaction in knowing that my life is of far greater importance than just me.  When I entrust my life to His hands, my chess piece is promoted from a pawn to a knight. There's a heck of a lot more power in that. And that my God will be the Ultimate Victorious Champ in the game and that my little player was used at all in the game, kinda rocks my socks off!

But when I fully see and understand my role: I am freed up to love, without fear of rejection;  I am freed up to trust, without fear of being let down. I am no longer concerned with being inconvenienced or outside of my comfort zone. I am freed up to be 100% sold out and doing everything in my power to serve the Lord without fear of burn out, because my life is no longer about me, but the One who's in control of me. We are to go, do, teach and Trust, Love, Obey and leave the details in His hands.  I am NOT saying I am successful at living this out daily, but this is the mindset and the heart I am longing for. I must decrease so that He can increase. John 3:30

Redecorating our Weakness

We have had an eventful last 2 weeks. I am so grateful to finally be, mostly unpacked, and back online. Praise the Lord! So excited, in fact, that I am writing this using a makeshift desk from a box of diapers. In a room that I cut the A/C off to, so this should be eventful.  But this thought has been so heavy on my heart and mind for two weeks that I have been about to bust to put it in writing.

I have moved way more times than anyone should have to endure and in doing so I have decorated a lot of houses. I pulled out the same items that I decorate with, the same pictures that have been on every wall, of every home. We have memorized which pieces of furniture need a drill, screwdriver or hammer to put together and I could hang curtains in my sleep. So even though I was super excited about this particular move, I couldn't help but grumble a bit in my heart, a few grumblings, I am ashamed to say, may have slipped from my mouth as well.

However, it is usually when I begin to grumble that it is an immediate trigger to look for what God is trying to teach me. And yes He taught me a lot more than this, but this really affected my heart.

Next time you visit someone's home, or your own, look at the decorations. Not one of them jumped out of a box and just landed there. Someone specifically placed it there.  Someone personally took the time with a hammer and nail, or mercy forbid, the dreaded drill. But someone personally placed it there because that's where they wanted it. Where they would find the most use out of it.  Look at the walls, the foundation, the windows. Human hands have touched every piece, thoughtfully designed the layout. (Others not so thoughtfully.)

I have spoken with many people who have said, I need to get my life right before I come to church. I need to quit doing this, I struggle with this or you just don't understand what I've done, who I've been, where I've been. If God knew my heart, He could never forgive me. How could He use someone like me? Why would He want someone like me?  I do this or that. I struggle with jealousy, pride, insecurity, judgment, I haven't spoken to my parents in years. I've had a child out of wedlock, I'm an adulterer. You name it. The thing is God already knows!

Do you think you're an accident. I always come back to Psalm 139, "He knit me together in my mother's womb..."  Just as I take so much time to thoughtfully consider where every decoration should go in my home, God thought of you before the foundations of the earth. God spent 9 months knitting you, crafting you into the vessel He wants you to be. He has allowed every obstacle in your path to shape you into what you have become. He KNOWS your weakness's. He placed them there. He knows your strengths, He gave them to you. He knows your failures, He was there. He has given each of us exactly what we need to live the life He desires us to have.  He has given us our weakness's because they are what draws us to Him the most. When we turn to Him with them. When I see Him take my weakness and turn them into an asset or a strength, I KNOW that's God moving and working and not me. Because I am all too familiar with the areas I tend to fail the most. When I see God take the things that once kept me in defeat and turn them into something He can use to bring glory to Himself. I know that's Him working.
Anyone of the miracles Christ performed in the bible, do you think the people would have met Christ without the weakness? Deafness, blindness, lameness, even demon possession.  The people lost in sin? Without the sin they wouldn't need a Savior...

We need to stop holding onto these weaknesses in our life that keep us from Pursuing God fully and instead pursue God and let Him transform our weaknesses!