Week 2 Day 3 - It's Time for a Makeover!

Week 2 – It’s Time for a Makeover!

Day 3 - Colossians 1:21-22

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.

2 Corinthians 4:15

¹⁵ All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

 I grew up in a loving, protective home, where curfew was heavily enforced for my own good.  My parents had expectations of honoring that time given to the minute.  It used to drive me crazy because I always misinterpreted it as a lack of trust. I always thought, “Being five minutes late doesn’t make me a bad kid!”  But then I went to college and I was free!  I could come and go whenever I so chose and it was awesome…. Or so I thought!  I remember a time in college, when I had gone to see a friend that was at another college.  I didn’t tell my roommate to wait up on me and I didn’t have my friend I was visiting wait to hear from me.  And of course, OF COURSE, I didn’t tell my parents I wasn’t leaving her college town until after 1:00 in the morning to drive back to mine.  No way!  I was FREE… right?  About an hour into the trip, my engine blew up and caught on fire.  I was stranded on the side of one of the darkest stretches of highway and no one was waiting on me and I had no way to reach them (Yes, it was before I had a cell phone!  GASP!).  It was right then that I understood the gift of my parents’ curfew.  It was in those horrid couple of hours of total fear and helplessness on that eerie stretch of road, that I understood it was their love and grace for me that caused them to require curfew.  If I would have had a curfew I missed that night, my parents would have been on the road searching within 30 minutes.  I would have had the assurance my safe rescue was on the way.  I wouldn’t have stood there next to my burning engine, praying for someone to come, and then fearing if that someone would actually be some ax murderer.  I learned a big lesson about my parents that night and even more, about my Heavenly Father.  You see, much like my parents, God has given us some very specific guidelines for our lives and they are given BECAUSE of His grace and mercy on our lives.   And because of that grace, we have the joy of reconciliation back to our God, through the reconciliation Christ has brought to us, if we chose to accept it.  But our gratitude for his grace, much like the verses above share, is not only for the amazing benefit of assurance it brings to our own lives, but even more so that others will be affected by it, thus bringing glory to God which is our purpose on this earth.  When we learn to understand the depth of the grace that is given, we embrace the life that grace brings, and peace flows out of it for us and for others that see it in us, and ultimately, His grace then comes full circle into glory for who He alone really is.  Isn’t that exciting?  Sometimes we chase after peace our own way.  We think it is for our benefit alone, but ultimately, when we exercise things in God’s way, the grace that gives us abundant peace, then brings such a higher purpose to our Father.  How then, can we NOT remember to seek peace through Him?  What has been your “car on fire, helpless on the highway, ah-ha moment?  What is stopping you today from truly finding gratitude, in spite of circumstances, for the grace that is abundantly clear?