{"id":15829,"date":"2021-05-20T22:44:52","date_gmt":"2021-05-21T05:44:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/gospel-express\/2021-rooted-copy\/"},"modified":"2021-05-20T22:51:59","modified_gmt":"2021-05-21T05:51:59","slug":"2021-gripgrace","status":"publish","type":"portfolio","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/gospel-express\/2021-gripgrace\/","title":{"rendered":"When you live in the grip of grace"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"flex_column av_one_full  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding first  avia-builder-el-0  avia-builder-el-no-sibling  \" style='border-radius:0px; '><section class=\"av_textblock_section \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/CreativeWork\" ><div class='avia_textblock  '   itemprop=\"text\" ><p style=\"text-align: right;\">By Max Lucado<\/p>\n<p>A few years back, our family spent the Fourth of July at a nearby lake. The weekend was full of fireworks, hot dogs, and hot sun. But the memory-maker of the three days was the parasail ride. You\u2019ve seen the sight: tethered to a high-speed boat, the parasail lifts the rope-clinging customer four hundred, or for an extra ten dollars, six hundred feet into the air.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-15831 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/parasail-1-e1621576107806.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"361\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Speeding around the lake, high above the clamor below, the passenger hangs on and enjoys the view, letting the boat do the work. What choice does he or she have? To reach such heights, help is needed. To maintain such heights, power is mandated. No person can self-elevate to such a level.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-15832 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/61Wy77UFEXL-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/61Wy77UFEXL-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/61Wy77UFEXL-687x1030.jpg 687w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/61Wy77UFEXL-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/61Wy77UFEXL-470x705.jpg 470w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/61Wy77UFEXL.jpg 907w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/>Such is a central theme of the New Testament. We cannot save ourselves, nor can we keep ourselves saved. Such is the work of God\u2019s grace. And such is the theme of this book [<em>In the Grip of Grace<\/em>]. Gratefully, God has used it over the last few years to speak to many. I just received a letter from a Christian friend who went to visit his dying brother in Europe. The two had been unable to connect on a spiritual level. My friend mailed his brother a copy of\u00a0<em>In the Grip of Grace<\/em>. By the time he arrived at his brother\u2019s bedside, death was at the door. But this book was on the bedside. The dying man gestured to it and told his brother, \u201cNow I get it.\u201d And smiled.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, the great grace of God. Watching as one of my daughters flew high above on the parasail, I thought,\u00a0<em>Isn\u2019t this a picture of grace? Look at her, soaring and sitting.<\/em>\u00a0Those two words seldom appear in the same sentence. Especially religious sentences. We tend to think soaring and working, soaring and striving, soaring and struggling. But soaring and sitting?<\/p>\n<p>It happens. It happens when you let the boat do the work. It happens when you let God do the same.<\/p>\n<p>It happens when you live in the grip of grace.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-15833 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Copy-e1621576293289.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Originally published in the preface,\u00a0<em>In the Grip of Grace<\/em>, copyright 1996, 2021, Max Lucado.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":15831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","tags":[],"portfolio_entries":[35],"class_list":["post-15829","portfolio","type-portfolio","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","portfolio_entries-english-writer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/15829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/portfolio"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15829"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/15829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15830,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/15829\/revisions\/15830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15829"},{"taxonomy":"portfolio_entries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio_entries?post=15829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}