Amazing Grace

Lessons learned:

Jesus came to release us from the old Law (first 5 books in the old testament). We are saved through grace, not because of anything we have or haven't done but because God loved us so much and he knew we needed a Savior. We needed saving from Sin. He knew that Sin was to great for us so Jesus came and dealt with sin, he died with sin clutched tighlty to his body and killed it's power over us. If you have accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior you are a new creature in Christ. Sin has lost it's power, death has lost it's sting! (marvelous light)

I grew up catholic and relied on what I did and how I performed for God but always I fell short. Thus a vicious cycle began, I felt because I loved the Lord so much, why then did I fall on my face, and I would shy away from Him because I was ashamed(and doubted his love) and then I was more inclined to walk by my flesh thus never recieving God's grace. Even now as I type I stuggle with accepting that. I live by rules, my family lives by rules(most unpronounced to them) and there is condemnation when life isn't by the rule, But that means I am living by old law and it is causing conflict in my spiritual walk. I hear God saying, "How much more must I do, to say I love you?" If God never blesses me in anyway ever again, he has already given me eternal life what more must he do, to show his love?

No matter what I have done or how I have sinned, I am special and can have a relationship and closeness with Jesus, without the condemnation. I can fellowship with Him, live with Him, and be filled with His Spirit. I follow and obey Him, not in order to gain is love and favor, but because I love Him and desire to follow and obey Him.

The more I OBEY him, the more his heart is revealed to me and when I keep his commandments it functions as a compass telling me when I am off the path and walking by flesh. I have walked where Christ has told me to, so why then do I slink back into sin and get off course? I relate this to working out, that high one gets from running, like after you have gone a mile or 2 and you reach your second wind and it's easy, you feel like you can run forever. The more you run the easier it is to get into that zone. Then you get hurt and can't run for a while, why does it take so long, for me to get back into it even know I know how good it feels to be able to run like that? Sometimes I stay in a sin for so long and know it isn't fulfilling or satisfing but yet I find myself there again. I think Paul says it best in Romans

Romans 7:15-25 NIV
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

God has shown me so much in the past 8 weeks, I can't express. His Grace BLOWs me away. By God's grace he has brought me into understanding some things, he has helped me to be aware of the condemnation I put myself through and he is saying, "I have already set you free. I love you the way you are."

Right now we live in that inbetween time, between the death of sin and God's final victory. I know I will fall short daily but I am looking forward to a time when there is no evil and no sin. Pray for me as I try cloaking in the Grace of God and accepting that Jesus paid the price, no need for condemnation any longer.