WHEN GOD SAID....

When God said..."My grace is sufficient for you"....

 

He promises us the grace to survive whatever pain, suffering or trials we are experiencing.  He does not promise to take the pain away, but the strength to survive it!

 

2nd Corinthians 4:8-9 says "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed;  perplexed, but not in despair;  persecuted, but not abandoned;  struck down but not destroyed.

 

When I take a few minutes to re-read these words and truly think about it...all I can think about and say is "Amazing Grace."  God is so good....no matter what we are going through, God doesn't sit back and just watch....He is right beside us, and just like the poem called "Footprints" when we only see one set of footprints in the sand, its not because God left us on our own, rather it is because He carried us.  When we feel like we are on our own, just remember God says He will never leave nor forsake us. 

 

Over the past couple of months, "Greatest Hits" have been the theme for Sunday sermons.  Being that I grew up in Sunday School, most of these "greatest hits" were very familiar to me. "This Little Light of Mine"....  "Deep and Wide" and this past Sunday was the last one and the most simpliest one, yet one of the hardest ones for most of us to accept....and that is "Jesus Loves Me".  Period, that simple.  He loves us just how we are, not because we are successful in our work, not because we have a nice home and a fancy car, not because we have lots of friends, a degree or because we are nice.  When we can finally accept that Jesus loves us, period, life is so much sweeter.  For me, it takes me to the hymn I have heard a million times, and never get tired of hearing it.  In fact I listen to it almost everyday, its in my CD player in the car...."Just As I Am".  This hymn has been around since 1895.  It was very well know for the "official" alter call song of the Billy Graham Crusades.  This hymn also simply states, that Jesus loves us just as we are.  We don't have to make a certain amount of money, do a certain number of good deeds, make amends with those we need to, or look a certain way.  He wants us just as we are, He doesn't want us to wait, He doesn't want us to think we aren't deserving of His love, or that we haven't done enough good in order to come to Him.  It's that simple...

 

"Jesus loves me.....this I know, for the Bible tells me so!"

 

and

 

"Just as I am, without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me...."

 

 God tells us in Revelations that "I am the Alpha and the Omego- the beginning and the end.  I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come, the Almighty One." 

 

It's so reassuring to know that I'm not perfect, but I am forgiven.  And I know I can never lose when God writes the end of my story....

 

and all this is....because of His Amazing Grace