Real Grace has to Stay Amazing

S - Galatians 5:4-6, 13-14 (NLT): "For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God's grace. But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive everything promised to us who are right with God through faith. For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, it makes no difference to God whether we are circumcised or not circumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love.  … For you have been called to live in freedom--not freedom to satisfy your sinful nature, but freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

O - This reality, when and how we are made right with God, never changes.  Jesus did not give people who believe in him a "clean slate" that they are supposed to keep clean on their own from that day forward.  He did not give us a "jump start" and then make us responsible to "keep the car running."  We are made right and kept right only one way ...faith in Jesus.  Any other attempt, attitude or conclusion is worse than error … it is bondage unto death.   This is the freedom that keeps us free.  This is an amazing part of amazing grace.  Grace is not only how we start it is the ONLY way we stay.  Jesus sets us free to serve God and others according to love, a freedom we could never earn or work hard enough to keep.  Jesus keeps us.  His love and grace keeps us we don't keep ourselves. 

A - This reality which never changes is one which we all try and change many times along the way … even unintentionally.  Our logical minds and fallen natures combine to create formulaic ideals which masquerade as wisdom and righteousness. The written voice of God says "These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence (Colossians 2:22-23)." My/our propensity over time to this tragic mistake is another reason why we need each other, the written voice and the ongoing reality of personal relationship with Jesus.  If any observance of the law can make or keep us righteous enough for God then Jesus died for nothing.  I do not want my life to carry this message on earth or to be reflecting it to heaven.  Amazing grace needs to stay amazing in and through me and through all.

P - Lord who really is amazing,

Thank you for this day and for the relentless truth that I can never make or keep myself in the righteousness you require … and you don't want me to ever try.  You put and keep me there and this keeps me close to you - the place I really want and need to be.  I am so grateful that amazing grace stays amazing forever in my life and through my life for your glory and the good of all.  Forgive me for my lapses … toward myself in approval and toward others in disapproval.  Thank you for calling us/me to yourself so that we would have real life.  Lord, I come to stay because you made the way and you keep me.  No one is able to pull away from you those the Father has given you and you never push them out.  I rejoice in the security of your love and offer mine back to you.  Lord, I do love you back.  Let me make you glad and bring you glory.
In Them,
Steve