Have you ever thought about this headline above "Our Patient Father"? Have you thanked and praised Him for this divine trait He sheds on us daily? At what point do you apply His Grace on the disobediant mistakes you made in life? How long do you dwell on the mistakes you've made, all day, all week or maybe even all month God Forbid as your heart completly ignores the truth that God loves you regardless? What is Grace and what does it mean to you? Is it something you dwell in daily or something you know about but give a minimal portion of focus and belief? Is Grace a dominant reality in your life daily?
I'm writing this message to you because God has graciously revealed to me that He is patient with me every day! I'm going to share a short story with you about what I've taken from these questions and then I encourage you to write out your own little story about how you applied this topic to your life. Because I veiw this matter as a very important issue we seem to deal with on a day to day basis and we must remember that God loves us unconditionaly regardless of our screw ups and that His son Christ Jesus died for our disobediance. I want you to read this with an open heart because I really don't want you to ignore and continue to push back that thing you did in the past. Or those thoughts in your head reciting that " Your a failure and you didn't do well enough". You need to bring it out and give it to your wonderful loving father, let His Grace be applied to the things your ashamed of! You must learn to allow Christ to change and mold you from your mistakes rather than ignore and hide them like they never even happened. Your are God's child, let Him take care of you, stop trying to care for yourself, YOU CAN'T DO IT ALONE! YOU MUST LISTEN TO GOD'S WORD ON THAT OR YOU WILL NEVER FIND REST!I want you to have an example to go along with this teaching on God's Longsuffering and I'm more than happy to share with you what the Lord's been teaching me on my journey with him!
I'm going to tell you this story mostly through a looking glass perspective, meaning I didn't exactly see alot of the wisdom and truth I'm going to share with you until later on, it kinda took me awhile to see God's Progress. So lets get started! The last few years, I've become more and more of a social and overt type of person. Which is great don't get me wrong, It's much easier to reach out to people and love our neighbors when we can fearlessly approach them right? But you see I used this great quality to manipulate my situation and social status rather than using it to glorify the Father. About 2 years ago I moved 180 miles away from home and started a new stage of early adulthood. As soon as I got to college I instantly focused on what do I have to do to fit in. Popularity was so important to me, so important I'd rebel against my savior to obtain it! And Once I had it in my grasp, I then thought I'd focus on my spiritual side of life. But I began to realize this was impossible because I couldn't have the ways of this World and the ways of the Father, I mean he makes that pretty clear to us. So I wasn't quite ready to give up everything I worked on for nearly 6 months. I mean I was so comfortable, tons of friends, pretty girls and lots of fun! But quietly, mericuflly and patiently He tried getting my attention, so I would realize I was directely OFF His path and enslaved to Worldly Aproval and Acceptance! And as He kept trying to help me up and lift me up, I pushed Him away. It was because my heart didn't quite undertand that all this time He desired for me to have a life more like His, Peaceful, Joyful and Pure, I didn't have the understanding to grasp the concept of Grace being applied to every ounce of my life and my struggles. And so in order for me to take the next step of Faith I'd have to move completely away from darkness and follow the Lord, Which meant see ya later REPUTATION! Because this entire Social Rep I had built was completely grounded on Darkness and the ways of this world so I had to let it go if I wanted to experience Joy unspeakable! So since I wasn't listening to His quiet patient requests earlier He then did something BIG, LOUD AND VISIBLE to WAKE ME UP! This wake up call hurt me very much, but because He loved me so much He knew it was the only way to get my attention and see the difference between Him and The World. This blows me away now as I look back on it, what a merciful God We Have! One who never gives up on us, Who continually watches us from the side lines and coaches us like a wonderful Dad would, letting us know that He is right there beside us and that He will always be right there beside us. Being able to Experience and witness how different God's will is from the World's Will was quite incredible, but I still wasn't quite sure How to apply the Grace of God to my situation. It was hard for me to forgive myself for what I had done, to the one whom my soul loveth. But over time God paintenly drew me closer and closer to Him helping me realize that He was so ecstatic to have me back in His arms. That He Loved me no matter what I did! Continually telling me "Ryan don't worry about screwing up, it's bound to happen your not perfect my child, But next time when you do screw up don't try and fix it on your own. My beloved Son died for you so that I could help change and mold your heart to allign with righteousness." He spoke to me through His written word telling me to dwell on Pslam 86:15 "But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth." So your situation may be way different then mine was but this lesson can be applied in a lot of different scenarious. So today ask yourself the question do you eat, sleep, drink and cry out GRACE daily! If not then ask God to bring you closer and closer to His Gift each day.
I will pick up on this blog in part 2, I have another great teaching on Grace that is quite different from this one. Grace is such an amazing, deep and broad topic I'll have to write another blog to cover the material Sooo Stay tuned!
