Summer Grace
Hey Friends,
Well I took a break from the bloggy world as last week was full of year end celebrations, graduations, parties and other fun activities to usher us into summer vacation. That’s right it’s that time again and today marks the first day of summer holidays. I am so not mentally prepared for the next 10 weeks of being home together with everyone. Routine is a good thing for this mommy, and well there is very little routine to the summer. Can anyone relate?
We were talking in our group this morning about grace. And how as humans we are conditioned to put limits, and conditions on everything and everyone we interact with. Through the life of David we are learning the the man who was called “a man after Gods own heart”, failed miserably, numerous times and yet God was gracious and forgave him..numerous times.
Grace is so hard to define and yet unless you know the character of God you can’t expect to understand if you have not experienced it. Would you agree?
In Psalm 51 David is asking for the Lord’s forgiveness after messing up big time. Not only was he going to have to deal with the consequences of his sinful choices but his family would also feel the pain of his wrong choices, and yet grace was available to them all. Whenever needed. Can you relate to needing, and experiencing God’s grace? If you have then you know its not a deserved favor nor is time sensitive or circumstantially based, all the limits we put on our human relationships and yet God does not. God is good all the time, we cannot change his character no matter how badly we mess up, and yet we are assured that if our hearts desire is for true forgiveness and a desire to change grace is abundantly given.
I stand in amazement!
Psalm 51 (The Message)
Psalm 51
1-3Generous in love—God, give grace! Huge in mercy—wipe out my bad record.
Scrub away my guilt,
soak out my sins in your laundry.
I know how bad I’ve been;
my sins are staring me down.
4-6 You’re the One I’ve violated, and you’ve seen
it all, seen the full extent of my evil.
You have all the facts before you;
whatever you decide about me is fair.
I’ve been out of step with you for a long time,
in the wrong since before I was born.
What you’re after is truth from the inside out.
Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.
7-15 Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean,
scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life.
Tune me in to foot-tapping songs,
set these once-broken bones to dancing.
Don’t look too close for blemishes,
give me a clean bill of health.
God, make a fresh start in me,
shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.
Don’t throw me out with the trash,
or fail to breathe holiness in me.
Bring me back from gray exile,
put a fresh wind in my sails!
Give me a job teaching rebels your ways
so the lost can find their way home.
Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God,
and I’ll sing anthems to your life-giving ways.
Unbutton my lips, dear God;
I’ll let loose with your praise.
16-17 Going through the motions doesn’t please you,
a flawless performance is nothing to you.
I learned God-worship
when my pride was shattered.
Heart-shattered lives ready for love
don’t for a moment escape God’s notice.
18-19 Make Zion the place you delight in,
repair Jerusalem’s broken-down walls.
Then you’ll get real worship from us,
acts of worship small and large,
Including all the bulls
they can heave onto your altar!
Journey On
May 27th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Cool Post, Thanks.
May 28th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Happy Beginning of Summer!
May 28th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Thanks for posting, I truly liked your most recent post. I think you should post more frequently, you obviously have talent for blogging!