Tags: grace

• old hurt and fresh healing

  Matthew 18:21-22 is really clear! Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” ,….. so Lord Jesus, I come to you right now with joy in my heart and knots in my gut! This mix and paradox is real in me;- The joy is about the never-ending forgiveness I have in you. [...]

• almost complete….?!

  but never quite…..! Somebody told me recently about being a few pieces short of a 1000 piece jigsaw: ouch! Throughout my life there have been moments when I looked at myself and felt as if there were more pieces of me missing than pieces in their proper places. How much energy has been expended compensating, explaining, finding excuses for those absent pieces. And how much time has been spent repairing the consequences of things I’ve done because pieces were missing. [...]

• what love….says?

  These words, from 1 Peter 4:8, fairly cover a blanket of life’s stuff ! “Love covers a multitude of sins.” Have you ever heard anyone gossip about someone you know? . . . What do you have to say? or want to say,…. or scream inside!? Here is what love says: Love says nothing. Love stays silent. “Love covers a multitude of sins.” Love doesn’t expose. It doesn’t gossip. If love says anything, love speaks words of defense. Words of [...]

• quoteable quote: wonder

  “The wonder of grace is that God meets our infidelity with friendship; our shame with love.” Pete Greig

• quoteable quote: if

  “If people judge me hate me and despise me, they are just. If people are kind loving and forgiving, that’s grace” Ted Haggard

• sheer grace!

  Tim Keller tells a powerful story of a woman who had visited his church but was fearful of gospel of grace. When asked to explain, she said: “If I was saved by my good words then there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through. I would be like a taxpayer with ‘rights’–I would have done my duty and now I would deserve a certain quality of life. But if I am a [...]

• don’t want to….

  I prayed this, at the weekend….. ‘I don’t want to gripe about others, half-as-much as I want to grow in the grace of God….’ How about you…? * griping or growing? * whining or worshiping? * troubled or trusting?

• lent 5

  these words from Sara Groves, are part of my pondering today… ‘this is grace: an invitation to be beautiful!’

• openess, grace and change

  God gives grace by using whatever comes our way to shape our lives. Progress in life and following Jesus, depends greatly on our openness.  Discipleship means opening our lives to God and to others. For if we believe that God is compassionately sovereign, then we can be confident that nothing will obstruct His loving plan for our lives. Simply put, God is never surprised. Never. In a sense God stands invisibly between us and all the circumstance we ever face [...]