Awed By Grace

Wow, True Grace
Published by
Deborah Negron – Awed by Grace

March 29, 2023

To think there is hope is a wonderful thing. To be able to come out of the deepest depression and sadness and know you have been loved before you ever messed up, is amazing. To understand that God knows your worst flaws and still He has loved you and is willing to invite you to come and be made clean, is absolutely a gift you should not pass up.

The hunger for the Word is not birthed by us. It is birthed in us. It is not of our own doing. It is the Spirit of God that draws us.

When we seek his will, Because he has drawn us, he ignites a flame in our hearts that causes there to be a growth in our desire to know the truth if God’s word.

The Lord causes there to be a zealous drive to seek him. There is an inclination to understand and grow in our faith.

Scripture tells us that it is valuable and useful.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
2 Timothy 3:16-17

When I was young the gospel preached was skewed. It presented a God that was punitive and angry. The way it was presented demanded a level of supposed perfection that was simply  unattainable.

The methods and manipulation were strict and one felt as if the other shoe was always going to drop.
Though we believed in God and believed Jesus was the Son of God.
That gospel made us feel we could never be secure in our faith.

When I truly understood the gospel, sadly, was when I failed miserably.  When I strayed and did not adhere to what I had learned about God’s word. The weight of guilt and shame was unbearable. It was deafening and what I realized, was it was what the enemy used to attempt to keep me from the true gospel.

You see, Jesus did not die because of my sin. He died to redeem the value he had already determined there was in me. What value? I was disobedient, ignorant, arrogant, an adulterous heart that had sought to live life away from God’s love. What value could there have been in me?

His very breath. His very image. His very clear intention to save you and me was not made because we sinned. It was wrought, that is, preplanned and predetermined, it was prepared before creation.

God was not coming to my rescue after the fact. He, the Creator of the universe knew beforehand how mankind would fall. He understood our weak estate before he created Adam and Eve.

This sounds too wonderful for our ears. But it is substantiated by scripture. That is, the Word of God.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Ephesians 2:8‭-‬9

4For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence. In love

5He predestined us for adoption as His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will,

6 to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the Beloved One.
7In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace 8 that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. 9 And He has made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to bring all things in heaven and on earth together in Christ.    
11 In Him we were also chosen as God’s own, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything by the counsel of His will,…
Ephesians 1:4-11

This means before I was knit in my mother’s womb, as he was making me, when his eyes saw me, he already loved me.
Psalm 139:139:13-16.

He prepared the steps I would walk in….

Righteousness will go before Him, And shall make His footsteps our pathway. Psalm 85:13

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
Ephesians 2:10

And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
Acts 2:21‭-‬24

God made a way for you and me to come to the saving knowledge of his grace.

His amazing grace. It is by grace we are saved.
For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9

The punitive God was not the God that sent his Son. That was a wrong image and idea of who God is.
The Lord throughout history, throughout the entire Bible and what we know as the Torah and the New Testament, has been revealing his grace and plan of redemption.

He told Abraham,
“In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
Genesis 22:18

He preached of this coming Messiah through Isaiah’s prophecy,

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from that time and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish this.
Isaiah 9:2‭, ‬6‭-‬7

Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no stately form or majesty to attract us, no beauty that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. Like one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. Surely He took on our infirmities and carried our sorrows; yet we considered Him stricken by God, struck down and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet, he did not open His mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth.
Isaiah 53:1‭-‬7

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. And this is the verdict: The Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come into the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever practices the truth comes into the Light, so that it may be seen clearly that what he has done has been accomplished in God.”
John 3:16‭-‬21

This is the loving God of the Bible. This is the Father who desires to see every Prodigal son come home.

This is the God who is able to forgive and heal and sever every tie we may have with darkness. He brings us in to his light.

This is the God who loved me and showed himself to me. His word is true and faithful.

He is desiring that no one perish.

He says to you, Come unto me all who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Mathew 11:28-30)

He reminded me that, He is the Good Shepherd that leaves the others safely tucked in the fold and comes to rescue me.

He knew I would mess up. He did not save me because I sinned.  He saved me because He first loved me. (1 John 4:19).

Then, He did not take the old and revamp it.
No scripture is clear.

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!
2 Corinthians 5:17

He has made me a new creation. His desire is to make you new. To transform us in to thise whom he calls his sons and daughters. He longs to adopt us in Christ Jesus.

In the New Kings James Version it reads,

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
II Corinthians 5:17

He does not see me as the failure I was, he sees me in Christ Jesus. Jesus is our Redeemer. He is the Gospel. This is the Good News! His love and sacrifice and resurrection is why we can say, we are saved.

Oh, what a wonderful Savior. Oh What Grace.

He knew we would fail. Still he created us. By his own will and his own design he predestined us to come to know this glorious grace.

So, I can’t treat his grace as if, though, my failures will mess it up. I can’t think of it as being, so frail, it cannot hold me in the days of my weakness. For when I am weak his strength is made perfect in my weakness. (2 Corinthians 12:9).
His Grace is Sufficient.

I cannot feel as if though, He will fail me when illness comes, or loss, or failures.  He is present in every season completing His work in those whom He has called to himself.

I was not saved because I failed. I was saved Because He never fails.
Sin was not the reason for my salvation. His Eternal Plan had this already prepared. Salvation was the result of God’s foreknowledge and plan even before creation was made.

So, I can come boldly to the throne of Grace. Because I know The God who sent his Son Jesus to take humanity’s sin away.
He is not some weak Savior. He conquered death and the grave.

So, I celebrate Jesus Christ not only on Resurrection Sunday. I celebrate him every Sunday! I celebrate him 7 Days a Week. 365 Days a Year I can Tell of His Mercies that are New Ever morning.

Jesus Loves you and Me.

Victory is knowing, Jesus loved us before we were even born.
We can choose to love him back. Or forfeit his amazing love.
But till the day you die The Opportunity for His love stands.

I pray, Jesus the Messiah will make himself real to you.

Oh, How He loves Us.

Such love and mercy, such grace does not depend on anything I did or didn’t do. God so loved us. He loves still.

He is merciful and waits and lovingly takes his time in reaching us with this true gospel.

No, not a punitive God. He is The One True Eternal God who Loves us Beyond Measure.

The Same God of the Old Torah and the One Presented clearly in The New Testament.

Yeshua Hamashiah- Jesus the Messiah