Grace

“But by the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which (was bestowed) upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” 1 Corinthians 15:10 (KJV)

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” Ephesians 2:8-9 (KJV)

Where would we be without God’s grace? Those of us who are saved, were saved by His grace. In 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, Paul gives a brief summary of the gospel and resurrection of Christ. He also calls himself the least of the apostles because of his past. But, that is the amazing thing about God’s grace; regardless of your past mistakes and sins, His grace is sufficient! By His grace, He can save us and by His grace we can serve Him. If you really think about and study the meaning and context behind those verses above, you will realize how great the gift of grace truly is. I know I’m not going into much detail, so I encourage you to look up the word “grace” in the Bible to study it further, and I may touch back on this subject in a future post.

 

 

I am currently participating in the Blogging from A to Z April 2015 Challenge. You can find more information by clicking on the badge to the right or click here for a list of participants. It has been an interesting experience so far and I have enjoyed finding and visiting other blogs. If you are a fellow participant, thanks for stopping by and feel free to leave a comment!

Fruit

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23 (KJV)

Galatians 5:16-26 and Matthew 7:15-23 both talk about fruit. Just as an apple tree should not bear oranges, Christians should not bear bad fruit. We can’t live perfectly, but our lives should ultimately reflect what we are. “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” (Matthew 7:20, KJV) If others look at your life, do your actions and attitude show the fruit of the Spirit? As it says in Galatians, we should walk in the Spirit because He can keep us away from the temptations of the flesh so that we can bear good fruit.

 This short and sweet post is not my first time to tackle this letter, in fact, one of my favorite posts was titled Brought to you by the Letter F.

Endurance

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter (finisher) of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” Hebrews 12:1-3 (NIV)

 I chose a longer passage of scripture today, mainly because it’s fairly self-explanatory, and there’s also a handful of E words, which is an added bonus. The assistant pastor at my church likes to use Hebrews 12 a lot because he enjoys running. He says when you run it is best to keep your eyes on the finish line or at least a fixed point in front of you, because if you turn to the right or left, you are likely to veer off course and end up taking longer. In the race of the Christian life, sin may try to take us off course or we may feel tired and like we can’t go on. But if we look at Jesus, who set the course and finished the race before us, we can endure to the end. For more details on this topic you can read my post titled Attaining the Prize.

Deer

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for You, O God.” Psalm 42:1 (NIV)

 Imagine that you’ve been out in the hot desert sun all day long without a drop of water and you finally come to a fresh stream and take in that wonderful, clear, soothing water. That is how the psalmist in Psalm 42 felt about hearing from the Lord. We also should be like this deer he mentioned. We should crave the living water of the Lord as much as we crave and need water for survival. Whether we feel downcast and disturbed like the psalmist or if we are experiencing God’s greatest blessings, we should put our hope in God and thank Him for the things He has done. Not only should we cast our cares on Him, but we should also seek Him in joy and in despair, for He is our water of life (John 4:13-14).

Casting Cares

“Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you.” 1 Peter 5:7 (KJV)

 When I was little, one of my favorite songs was derived from this verse. The lyrics are: “I cast all my cares upon you. I lay all of my burdens down at your feet. And any time I don’t know what to do, I will cast all my cares upon you.” In fact as I sing along typing this, I realize it’s still one of my favorite songs. Most of my life, I have been full of worries. Even when I was a kid, I would worry about my parents getting in an accident or that some other horrendous thing would happen. That song has always been a comfort to me because it’s a reminder that when things are out of our control and when we feel like everything is about to crumble, God is still in control. He wants to take our burdens upon His shoulders and carry them for us. So take comfort in His words and do not worry (See Matthew 6:25-34).

Blessed

“Praise ye the Lord. Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in His commandments.” Psalm 112:1 (KJV)

When we obey God and live for Him, we will receive His blessings. My pastor likes to say that even if you never receive another blessing from God beyond salvation, you can still consider yourself blessed because that is the greatest gift you can ever obtain. But, if I really stop and think, I know that God has blessed me far beyond salvation. I have food to eat, a roof over my head, friends and family that care about me, and the list could go on and on. Sometimes the trials of life cause us to forget our blessings and we only see what we don’t have. In those times, we must learn to count our blessings. Another B word is found in Matthew 5:1-12; the Beatitudes speak to believers about how they are blessed.

 

Armor

“Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” Ephesians 6:11 (KJV)



What better way to start off this month and this blog challenge than to put on our armor? Armor is used as protection or defense from outside penetration. Without armor, we are left venerable during an attack. Those of us who are Christians are under attack by the devil every day and we need the armor of God listed in Ephesians 6:11-18 to protect us from these attacks. It’s a choice we make each morning, do we start the day in prayer that we can stand in truth and righteousness and take up the shield of faith and the sword of the Word of God, or do we carry on with our own business and go out ill-prepared? I know from personal experience that it is far better to seek God and put on His armor from the very start of the day than to look back on a day full of regrets or bad decisions. So, my challenge to you today and each day this month is to put on the armor of God that we find in Ephesians.