We are the Product of Grace. It cannot be earned. It is a gift from God. We do not deserve it. God meets our indifference with forgiveness. He knows our sin well and it does not hinder His love for us. Grace gives us forgiveness for our sins, transgressions, iniquities, and yet it still enables us to live in such a way that pleases God.

Mercy, on the other hand, is the compassion and kindness shown to someone whom it is in One’s power to punish or render swift justice. How many times have God withheld judgement and punishment in your life?

Essentially, grace is a gift we don’t deserve, while mercy is not getting the punishment we deserve. Both of which are undoubtedly God’s ultimate expression of love for us and the bible teaches us to recognize, accept, and grow from God’s undeserved kindness!

Recognize:

To be able to respond to his grace and mercy fully, we must first recognize our need for such. We must humbly accept that we are all sinners and imperfect, and everything we have is thanks to Him. Let us shed our pride and shift our focus away from ourselves. Only by doing so can we acknowledge His presence in our lives and all the blessings we’ve received from Him.

Accept:

He has given His grace and mercy for free, never asking anything in return. Thus, it’s only right to accept these acts of love with all our hearts. Wholehearted acceptance is the best way of showing our gratefulness for everything we’ve received.

Grow:

When we accept His grace, we begin to grow in his love. In time, these seeds of love that He has planted in our hearts will take root and bear fruits. Through acts of kindness and compassion, we can then spread to the world the grace and mercy that He generously bestowed upon us.

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God desires to have a personal relationship with us because He loves us and because it is the best thing for us. He created us, He loves us and He knows what we need and don’t need and the only way for Him to reveal that to us is through a right relationship with Him, through His Word, prayer, and praise!

Pope John Paul II beautifully expressed his insight in his apostolic letter on Preparation for the Jubilee Year 2000:

“Christianity has its starting-point in the Incarnation of the Word. Here, it is not simply a case of man seeking God, but of God who comes in Person to speak to man of himself and to show him the path by which he may be reached. . . . In Jesus Christ God not only speaks to man but also seeks Him out. The Incarnation of the Son of God attests that God goes in search of man. . . . It is a search which begins in the heart of God and culminates in the Incarnation of the Word. If God goes in search of man, created in His own image and likeness, He does so because He loves Him eternally in the Word, and wishes to raise Him in Christ to the dignity of an adopted Son.”

Your relationship with God in Christ is personal and intimate. Yes, God is impartial and He loves all the same, but He also loves us uniquely. He individually tailors His loves for us because we all have different needs. Hence, the reasons why our relationship with Him must be authentically personal. I love the way James 2:23 confirms of friendship with God. He said, “And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to Him as righteousness”—and He was called a friend of God.”

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#PersonalRelationshipWithJesus

One of the so-called experts (a lawyer) of the religious law tried to catch Jesus slipping by asking Him a question he believed would compromise His position regarding God’s commandments. However, what mean ole ‘Jim Adler’ didn’t know was that he was speaking to the Judge that participated in writing the 10 commandments.

In Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus replied to the Esquire by saying, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

Outside of the fact that Jesus nailed His response, the message He is reminding us today is that as believers our ‘response’-ibility is to recognize that God always comes first and loving our brothers/sisters as our own selves is a close second!

I’ve learned that when I put God first everything else always mysteriously works out for my good and obviously His glory. Jesus effortlessly managed to outwit the over zealous attorney and at the same time He is now teaching us about the power and principle of spiritual prioritization.

As born again believers we mustn’t forget that God is our main priority. There should never be a time when we are merely squeezing God into our schedules. God in Christ is the schedule and everything else gets squeezed in accordingly!

Rule # 1 is don’t make God number 2!

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The battle between David and Goliath found in I Samuel 17 should always remind us that victory belongs to the Lord even before the battle begins!

Who can forget David’s fearless response to the Philistine giant that stood before an all powerful God? David replied to Goliath’s fruitless taunts in verses 45-47, “You come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies—the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. Today the LORD will conquer you, and I will kill you and cut off your head. And then I will give the dead bodies of your men to the birds and wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel! And everyone assembled here will know that the LORD rescues his people, but not with sword and spear. This is the LORD’s battle, and he will give you to us!”

My brothers and sisters, God has armed you with strength for every trial that you face. He has equipped you with the tools you need to be victorious! It’s easy to believe the lie that the battle is too painful to fight or that we shouldn’t even try to fight back, but God will never give you a battle He can’t win. Did you hear that?? This should be a game changer! Recognizing the power in this declaration should take the pressure off of you because the battle you are facing right now has already been won.

Make no mistake, the authority of Christ conquers the devil. The blood of the lamb (that is, the sacrifice of Christ for us) and the word of our testimony (that is, claiming the authority and the blood of Christ in our own lives) – these are now the things that bring into physical manifestation the 7,000+ plus promises of God over every battle we face in our life and in the lives of those we love!

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#TheBattleIsNotYours

#TakeItAwayLord

The expression God is the God of the hills and valleys originates from the narrative of two battles in the book of 1 Kings. Essentially, saying that God is the God of the hills and valleys means that God’s sovereign power is not limited or confined to any one location or sphere of influence. The Lord Almighty rules and reigns supreme over every place on earth—every hill, every valley.

It was common in ancient pagan nations to perceive each god or goddess as having a particular domain or sphere of power on the earth. Baal, for example, was the god of fertility and weather. The god Baal Peor was a local deity whose range seems to have been confined to a certain geographical area. There were additional gods for the forests, the crops, the mountains, the seas, and the rivers. In this cultural framework, monotheism was unique, and the idea that any god was supreme in all areas was unheard of.

First Kings 20 opens with King Ben-Hadad, ruler of Aram, attacking the city of Samaria in Israel. Ben-Hadad demands that King Ahab surrender his wealth, wives, and children to him. Initially, Ahab agrees, but when Ben-Hadad adds the condition that he be given anything that his servants lay their hands on, Ahab refuses. His refusal infuriates Ben-Hadad such that he threatens to destroy the city so thoroughly that not even enough dust would remain for each of his soldiers to take a handful.

An unnamed prophet announces to Ahab that God will grant Israel victory so that “you will know that I am the LORD” (1 Kings 20:13). In this instance, King Ahab obeys God. True to God’s promise, the Arameans are driven back, and the siege is brought to an end.

Because Samaria is in the hill country of Israel, the Arameans mistakenly believe that the God of Israel is only the god of the hills and not of the valleys or anywhere else. Thinking Israel’s ability to triumph was limited to higher terrain, they regroup and begin to strengthen their forces for an attack on the lower plains.

Once more, the anonymous prophet warns King Ahab that Ben-Hadad’s army will strike again in the spring: “This is what the LORD says: ‘Because the Arameans think the LORD is a god of the hills and not a god of the valleys, I will deliver this vast army into your hands, and you will know that I am the LORD’” (1 Kings 20:28).

Not only did the Arameans discover that Israel’s sovereign God knows no limitations, but Ahab and all of Israel did as well. The one true God proved that He rules everywhere. Ben-Hadad’s forces were defeated so thoroughly in the second battle at Aphek that the king surrendered to Ahab while pleading for his life to be spared.

God gave Israel victory both at Samaria in the hills and at Aphek in the valleys to show that, unlike the ineffective and finite gods of Canaan, God is sovereign over all territories and regions. It is a mistake to think of God as only a “hill god” or a “valley god.” He is the God of both the hills and the valleys.

My brothers and sisters, our God is an all-powerful, infinite Ruler of the whole earth. Psalm 24:1 confirms, “The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” If you are traveling through a valley today my suggestion to you is to lift up your eyes and look to the hills from which cometh your help (Psalm 121:1-2).

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