Author Archive for: meiling

Grace. The bank gives us a grace period. The seedy politician falls from grace. Musicians speak of a grace note. We use the word for hospitals, baby girls, kings and pre-meal prayers. We talk as though we know what grace means.

You turn the page of your Bible and look at the words. You might as well be gazing at a cemetery. Lifeless, stony, nothing moves you. But you don’t dare close the book, no sirree. You dare not miss a deed for fear that God will erase your name.

If that’s your feeling, grace can speak to you. God’s grace has a drenching about it. It comes after you. It re-wires you. From insecure to God-secure. From regret riddled to better-because-of-it. From afraid to die to ready to fly. As Paul said in Galatians 2:20 (NKJV), “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” You might call it a heart transplant.

You stare into the darkness. The ceiling fan whirls above you. Your husband slumbers next to you. In minutes the alarm will sound, and the demands of the day will shoot you like a clown out of a cannon into the three-ring circus of meetings, bosses, and baseball practices. For the millionth time you’ll make breakfast, schedules, and payroll…but for the life of you, you can’t make sense of this thing called life. It’s beginnings and endings. Cradles and cancers and cemeteries and questions. The meaning of life, the poor choices of life.

Did you know God answers the mess of life with one word? Grace. Do we really understand it? God in the Bible says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you” (Ezekiel 36:26 NKJV). That’s grace! Grace calls us to change and then gives us the power to pull it off.

Some people feel so saved that they never serve. Some serve at the hope of being saved. Does one of those sentences describe you? Do you feel so saved that you never serve? So content in what God has done, that you do nothing? The fact is, we are here to glorify God in our service.

Or is your tendency the opposite? Perhaps you always serve for fear of not being saved. You’re worried there’s some secret card that exists with your score written on it and your score is not enough. Is that you? The blood of Jesus is enough to save you. John 1:29 (NIV) announces that Jesus is “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”

The blood of Christ doesn’t cover your sins, conceal your sins, postpone your sins, or diminish your sins. It takes away your sins, once and for all. So you are saved! And since you are saved, you can serve with joy.

Are a bride and groom ever more married than they are the first day? The vows are made, the certificate signed—could they be any more married than that?

Imagine fifty years later. They finish each other’s sentences, order each other’s food. They even start looking alike—a thought which troubles my wife, Denalyn, deeply. Wouldn’t they be more married on their 50th anniversary than on their wedding day? Marriage is both a done deal and a daily development.

The same is true of our walk with God. Can you be more saved than you were the first day of your salvation? No. But can a person grow in salvation? Absolutely. Like marriage, it’s a done deal and a daily development. Be secure in your salvation. And at the same time, grow in your salvation.