MY FRIENDS, GRACE CONTINUES TO ABOUND HOW ARE WE RESPONDING?

MY FRIENDS, GRACE CONTINUES TO ABOUND HOW ARE WE RESPONDING?

In a speech made in 1863, Abraham Lincoln said, “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown.

But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.

Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.” Paul says in Ephesians 2:8-10. (KJV) “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of ourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Friends, are we squandering this precious gift by allowing the god of this world to give us the impression, we can put off any real commitment towards our salvation.

Let’s just see what happens, surely there will be some Hollywood type big bang occurrence, we tell ourselves. God knows our position in the community and how dedicated we are to our civic responsibility. And  everyone at the office knows I go to church.

Some of my co-workers have even attended friends and family day with me. My friends, the world is deteriorating before our eyes, but God still reaches as far as he has too in extending an invitation for us to come.

He knows the battle is still being fought over the mind and body of His Children. But Christ will soon come to take those who have taken advantage of His grace and not squandered His blessings for our on benefits.

Remember, He knows His Children, and His children knows Him, because His faithful studies His word and seeks the outpouring of His Spirit daily. Paul states in Romans 5:17 (KJV), For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

”Grace my friends, simple grace, how sweet the sound!! Christ, came from His beautiful home, to this wicked universe to die on a cruel cross so that His grace and our Faith in His name and Him crucified would be sufficient for our salvation if we would only accept it as Gods favor.

A gift that is infinite and not by anything we have done, but because He loves us so much. But with His abounding grace comes an abounding responsibility that should grow daily.

But our responsibility requires action along with a shared vision to serve. Christ Himself tells us, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9:23 (NIV)

Deny my friends is where we should be in our relationship with God today because only through the denying of self will we ever be “safe to save” which tells our Savior we are ready to live throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity in His pure and holy kingdom.

My Friends, where there is no vision, the people perish…..Proverbs 29:18 (KJV)