Wednesday 5 August 2009

The Journey of Grace Continues

I continue to journey through the ups and downs of stepping into the realisation that living under grace is completely different to living under rules, regulations and trying to fit into a mould. The journey has new highs and new lows. Constant new revelations seem to hit me on a daily basis and yet at the same time the battle often seems more intense! Recent days / weeks the feelings of condemnation seem to have grown and become more tougher to handle. I am grateful to God for putting key people around me that have encouraged me that the Bible says 'there is no condemnation for those in Christ.' People that have encouraged me that God's love and thoughts towards me are good and will never change even if I ever mess up that He will still love me that He doesn't ever get cross with me that I haven't fully grasped grace yet.
Then this evening I was reading Steve McVey's blog and this post and these paragraphs hit me like a bullet:-

The Spirit of Christ doesn’t put you under guilt and condemnation about something Jesus Christ has already absorbed into Himself at the cross, defeated and put away. Remember that Jesus dealt with sin and then sat down by the right hand of God because there was nothing left to do regarding sin. Your sins have been defeated and put away. So at every moment, “There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.”
When the Christian sins, the Holy Spirit causes us to realize, “This isn’t who I am. I don’t want to live like this.” That realization is a call to recognize our righteousness and act like who we are. If you sense feelings of worthlessness and shame; if you think you are a horrible person when you sin, that isn’t the Holy Spirit speaking to you. It may be your church or family history rising up to condemn you, but it isn’t God’s Spirit. He doesn’t do that. Ever.
-Steve McVey
What an awesome statement re God condemning me - "He doesn't do that. Ever."
How I pray that this goes from my head to my heart.....................

5 comments:

The Lewis Family said...

Absolutely. It shall go from your head to your heart more and more! Of course it is easier when we are are surrounded by people of like mind instead of being barraged by falsehoods. But all being said, Jesus didn't die in vain. . . ! Just keep blogging and sharing your ups and downs. It helps to share the downs cause there are always people around to encourage. I speak from experience! And you can delete the people (rather, their comments) who don't :) Good to hear what is going on!

Becky

Nick Cameron said...

Thanks for your encouragement Becky.
It is not always easy to share the downs - the ups are much easier to blog about! :-)
Thing I am finding about grace is that the more I read about it, the more I put myself 'in the line of fire' to try and even start to grasp something of God's grace the harder some other things are - does that make sense!?
Nick

The Lewis Family said...

Don't you just love opposition. . . (note my tone is dripping with irony) There are things in the unseen realm that so appose the truth and I have found that where I am most sensitive to mind/emotion attacks is in the places where I am still healing from wounds that have been inflicted upon me. For the first few years of my marriage there were so many fears and hurts and delusions i had that i was prone to giving into many weepy episodes. I guess you could call it self pity etc, but there wasn't much I could do to stop it. But as grief pours out (which isn't always logical - ha) healing gradually occurs. But I have to say that I got frustrated at how slow healing seemed to take. But that too is unseen. It's hard too guage, but in retrospect you can see the change. . . Steve McVeys the divine invitation is really good, as is the free online book 'He Loves Me' by Wayne Jacobson. And Brennan Manning books are always encouraging too. Reading such books helps clear my vision put my sights upon much more solid ground!

The Lewis Family said...

okay, I guess 'He loves Me' is no longer downloadable on their site. Must be something to do with their new publishing company.

Nick Cameron said...

Hi Becky
Thanks for the tip about 'Divine Invitation' - I am reading 'Grace Rules' by Steve McVey at the moment but will put that on my to read list!
Know what you mean about grief and there not being any set time etc....
Bless yer!
Nick