STILL STANDING BY GOD'S GRACE
A DEPOSIT HAS BEEN PAID
NO GRACE FOR GRANTED
God loves us. He loves you. He loves me. He loves them. He created us and He is crazy about us. (Oft times I wonder if He thinks He is just plain crazy for even being bothered with us.) He loves us so much that He paid a deposit for our lives so that we could spend eternity with Him. What was the deposit? I’m glad you asked. It was the life of His only son, Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:5 says, “Now it is God who made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come.”
God gave His only son to be a sacrifice for our sins so that we would no longer be separated from Him. Jesus’ blood paved the way for us to spend eternity in heaven with Him. The Spirit that dwells within us as Believers, given after we accepted Christ as our Savior, is the deposit that guarantees us eternity with God if we live according to His will and are obedient to His ways.
Dictionary.com describes deposit as to give as a security or in part payment; to deliver and leave; to put, place or set down, especially carefully or exactly. I think all of these definitions accurately describe God’s deposit of the Holy Spirit into the lives of Believers. To give as a security or partial payment says that the Holy Spirit secures us and seals us as a down payment until Jesus returns to come and get us. Jesus delivered and left the Holy Spirit with us after His ascension back to heaven. And He carefully put and place the Spirit exactly (and only) in the lives of those who believe in Him.
We should all know by now that God knows we are not perfect. We were born in sin. We are still currently housed in the sinful flesh that we were created with and temptations will befall us everyday of our lives. So does He expect perfection from us? I’m glad you asked this too. (You all are coming up with some very good questions this week.) The answer is no. He just wants us to have perfect hearts with perfect attitudes. He wants us to utilize the deposit He so graciously placed in our lives to help us to get on track, stay on track and get back on track once we stumble and fall. He wants us to turn away from those behaviors that cause us to sin and separate ourselves from Him and allow the Holy Spirit to guide us back to the pool of Jesus’ blood so that we can again, every time, be washed clean. 1 John 1:9 says, “But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.”
Often times deposits are non-refundable or you are only allowed to get it back when you return the item in the same condition as you received it. Now this is not the case with the deposit of the Holy Spirit. We should not want to return Him and once we receive Him, we should not remain in the same condition as we were before we received Him.
Now knowing that God forgives us and cleanses us back to righteousness (right standing with Him) should not give us a permit to continually ignore the Holy Spirit that has been so graciously deposed into us. Jude 1:4 says, “For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.” So according to scripture, when we continuously sin with an attitude of it’s okay; God will forgive me, we turn our back on Jesus, deny Him even. The Bible calls us godless when we believe in this manor. How we live, how we apply God’s Word and how we display His love shows how much we respect His deposit. Taking God’s grace for granted shows disrespect to the deposit paid and put exactly on purpose into our lives.
The price has been paid. The deposit has been made. Now it is up to us to keep our minds stayed on Jesus and what our sin cost Him…
2 Corinthians 5:21, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”
MY MISSION STATEMENT
Building A Bridge From The World To The Kingdom
It is my mission as a child of God to share the good news of Jesus Christ and to bring God’s children into His Kingdom. In an effort to accomplish my goal within the Kingdom of God, I will use the natural and spiritual gifts given to me from God. I will walk in the Fruit of the Spirit. I will depend on the Holy Spirit to guide my heart, my actions, my tongue and my attitude and to show me when I am off course. I will be accepting of correction from God and counsel from others and when I falter, I will quickly ask for forgiveness and right my behavior.
It is my mission to show others how to live in the peace and abundance offered by God and to forfeit their lives of stress, disharmony, jealousy, and other vices of the flesh created by the Devil. I want others to see all the benefits of establishing and maintaining a healthy and fruitful relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ and in contrast revealing the dangers of continuing to stay in the mindset of the world.
In an effort to bring my mission to fruition I will use gentle persuasion, wisdom, confidence and personal testimony to show others the value of the Bible (the Word of God) and how it is to be used to lead every avenue of their lives.
And while the entire world belongs to God, I believe that my target group is females of all ages; for there is no age limit on trials and tribulation, no time limit on being triumphant. I have had immense heartaches, stresses, problems, unfortunate circumstances and mishaps, all of which I believe can be used to strengthen, promote, uplift and encourage others. I would like my mistakes to be used as blessings for others. These messages are to fortify women, yet men will also benefit. The gentlemen will become recipients of better wives, mothers and daughters.
I want to keep it real with these women. I want to teach them and encourage them from the Word of God versus my own values and opinions. I want to reach those who seem to be lost forever, by getting to them on their own level and then raising their level of consciousness. I want to help them abandon the old stereotypes of Christianity not being any fun. I want to help them to realize the great joy that comes from a true relationship with Jesus without the harsh restrictions they have become accustomed to hearing. I want to help them to walk across that bridge from the World into the Kingdom by truthfully displaying to them that God’s world is one of promise, purpose and potential and not just restrictions, regulations, and rules.
In essence I want my life to reflect the priceless, matchless wonderment of a true relationship with God as their Father, Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and the Holy Spirit as their ever-present help. I want to help them on their way to becoming great women of God.