We have such freedom and adventure in God’s Grace.\u00a0 We are safe with grace even though it is unpredictable.\u00a0 Jesus\u00a0seemed unpredictable to those around\u00a0Him but He was just\u00a0living out of obedience to His Father’s directions.\u00a0 If you read the gospels carefully, you will see that His unpredictable behavior drove the Pharisees crazy!\u00a0<\/p>\n
Grace\u00a0allows “out of the box” living.\u00a0 If you are like me and you have spent the majority of your life up until this point living from a law based mentality, grace may seem a little scary.\u00a0\u00a0In\u00a0reality, we have nothing to fear as I John 4 reminds us that perfect love drives out all fear.\u00a0 So with grace\u00a0it might seem a bit “risky” if you know what I mean.\u00a0 Living by the law was so\u00a0“cut and dried”.\u00a0 Dry….now there is a good word for it.\u00a0 Grace is alive, organic and relational.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Was the law bad?\u00a0 No way!\u00a0 It accomplished it’s purpose in revealing my sin and my need for a Savior.\u00a0 I realized very quickly that I could not keep the letter of the law 24\/7 so I needed what Christ provided on the cross.\u00a0 I needed life, forgiveness, peace and relationship!\u00a0 Christ on the cross was grace providing all that I needed.\u00a0 Now, I walk in, abide in, make myself at home in His wonderful, matchless grace!\u00a0<\/p>\n
Through this grace, I can give up my performance based behaving and trying to be perfect.\u00a0 I have a net below to catch me if I fail.\u00a0 That net is called Grace.\u00a0 Let me share with you an illustration that I found rather enlightening from Juan Carlos Ortiz.\u00a0 I read this in the book entitled “Rest Assured” by Bill Ewing.\u00a0\u00a0Mr. Ortiz\u00a0once recalled a circus attendee who had the privilege of talking to a performer after a show.\u00a0 He commented on how the net saved the trapeze artists’ life.\u00a0 The performer looked a bit humored.\u00a0 Still struck with awe the guest exclaimed, “That net saved your life!”\u00a0 In broken English, the artist expressed that this was indeed true, but then tried to explain the net’s further purpose.\u00a0“Yes, the net saves us,”\u00a0 he said in a heavy French accent, “but its most important purpose is to allow us to get better.\u00a0 With it stretching below we can try and fail without fear, becoming the very best we could ever be.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wow!\u00a0 God’s grace allows us to try and fail without fear while we stretch and grow.\u00a0 Now there is a new spin on failure!\u00a0 With this point of view there is no reason to fear failure.\u00a0 Again, as I said in a previous blog – for us a Christians, there is room for failure and when we do, it is a forward motion – a failing forward as I call it.\u00a0 This is how we learn and grow and become all that God has planned for us to be (Eph. 2:10).<\/p>\n
Galatians 2:19-20 The Message – “What actually took place is this:\u00a0 I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work.\u00a0 So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man.\u00a0 Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it.\u00a0 I identified myself completely with him.\u00a0 Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ.\u00a0 My ego is no longer central.\u00a0 It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God.\u00a0 Christ lives in me.”<\/p>\n
May you grow more and more in the\u00a0GRACE and\u00a0KNOWLEDGE of our Lord Jesus Christ – our Abba Father – our Daddy – our Papa!<\/p>\n
Dana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We have such freedom and adventure in God’s Grace.\u00a0 We are safe with grace even though it is unpredictable.\u00a0 Jesus\u00a0seemed unpredictable to those around\u00a0Him but He was just\u00a0living out of obedience to His Father’s directions.\u00a0 If you read the gospels carefully, you will see that His unpredictable behavior drove the Pharisees crazy!\u00a0 Grace\u00a0allows “out of the box” living.\u00a0 If you are like me and you have spent the majority of your life up until this point living from a law based mentality, grace may seem a little scary.\u00a0\u00a0In\u00a0reality, we have nothing to fear as I John 4 reminds us that perfect love drives out all fear.\u00a0 So with grace\u00a0it might seem a bit “risky” if you know what I mean.\u00a0 Living by the law was so\u00a0“cut and dried”.\u00a0 Dry….now there is a good word for it.\u00a0 Grace is alive, organic and relational.\u00a0 Was the law bad?\u00a0 No way!\u00a0 It accomplished<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}