More about Grace

I know I promised more fun posts, and I'll get to those tomorrow, but I wanted to explain some more about the grace thing. I hope no one who reads these posts will think that I don't think we need to "work" on our sin. Well, "work" is not a good word, because I don't think we need to work on it. I think we need to let God work on it. However, it almosts sounds too easy like that. That we don't have to do anything except sit back and do whatever we want to because, well, you know, that grace sure is a powerful thing and I'm covered, so why bother worrying about becoming more Christ-like? The passage in Romans 6 comes to mind:

"Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death?"
Romans 6: 1-3 New Living Translation

We still have a job to do, even covered by all that wonderful grace...we have to repent of (turn away from, change our minds about) our sin, asking our faithful Father to once again cover us with His grace and forgive us. This is not something you do once a year. This is an ongoing process to keep our hearts clean before Him. Do I do this? Sometimes. Sometimes I'm so good at repenting I'm doing it a hundred times a day! (In case you didn't catch it, that was a joke.)

Here's another thing: a lot of Christians beat themselves up because they aren't as mature as they think they should be, or they measure themselves to other believers, or they can't get rid of a stronghold. Well, in case you fall into one (or all!) of those categories, here's some verses you need to look up, keep in your Bible, and refer to every once in a while...

Ephesians 1:3-5, 7-8
Ephesians 2:13
Ephesians 3:6
Ephesians 5:29
Isaiah 43:4

These verses tell us who we are in Christ. Will we still struggle? Yes, until Jesus takes us home. But we don't have to live defeated.

I know this is a lot to take in, and I don't convey my thoughts as eloquently as they do in TrueFaced, so you need to read that book! Just my personal opinion, though. :)