God's Grace...

The grace of the Lord has been on my mind alot as of late. It started me thinking when the students had a class on the book of Galatians. The teacher, Brian Reese, has a great testimony of the Lord working in his life and it comes through in the way he teaches. I remembered him from last year, but there is just something about actually caring (as bad as that sounds) about what the teachers are saying and applying it to your life. The second to last session that he had with the students, I sat in and oh my goodness...it was amazing!!! There is so much freedom in Christ that we, as Christians, don't take advantage of and it frustrates and saddens me. I think some of us go through life striving to be perfect and earn the right to enter into the presence of God and what we don't get is that we will NEVER BE PERFECT ENOUGH FOR HIM!!! It is by God's grace and only by His grace that we can have the assurance that we will never lose our salvation no matter how many sinful decisions we make. Granted, we will not live a life blessed by Him as much as it would be if we were to strive after Him and follow His commandments. One thing that Brian stressed was that it is because we love God that we try and follow His commandments and NOT that we obey His commandments and that in return makes us love God. I know that I flip flop that around sometimes and so it was a good reminder for me to hear. Overall, God is amazing and He astounds me each and every day with just how much He loves and forgives me for all the foolish decisions I make. What an amazing thing to know that there is NOTHING that will ever separate us from Christ's love...