This quote was in one of my devos. this past week from Proverbs 31 ministries and I loved it because it is how I feel sometimes. There are times where I think I have to know and/or plan out the whole Journey but really I don't have to. God has that all taken care of. I just have to trust Him to lead me where He wants me to go. I only need the strength to take one step at a time and I'm happy about that because I can't do more then that. I am human and I will mess up if I try and I have done just that.
That is why we ask for our "daily bread". It is daily for a reason, not yearly, weekly, or lifetime, but daily. I also like to talk about this topic because I felt like this is what the sermon was on last night at church. It was about the purpose that God has for us and how we don't need to figure it all out at once. It was all about Paul's role and his prayer to the couch. He explained 3 graces and they are: mystery, ministry, and perspective. The way Paul uses the word "mystery" in Eph. verses 2-5 is that it can't be understood unless you tell someone about it like God's plan. God's plan is a mystery to those outside of His Love but once you hear about His Love and who He is then you understand that mystery. When you understand what grace really is then you are "enrolled" in God's plans for the world.
The 2nd grace is ministry and Paul describes how in verses 8-12 of Eph. "Ministry is a gift from God, just like Grace is a gift from God." Everyone has that gift of ministry but not in the same way. God gives you your talents and passions for a certain part of ministry that He wants you to do in the bigger picture of the world. A word that I kept hearing was "unworthiness". You have to be unworthy for the gift of ministry because it is a big gift. You have to be the least of all the leaders because it is that big. I love some of the quotes that the pastor said during the sermon like, "unworthiness grows on the cross" and "unworthiness should make you charge after God."
The first quote is just saying that we didn't deserve for Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. We were so unworthy but yet He did and those bad things just keep growing because we are sinners but God keeps forgiving us if we ask for it so in a way it does grows. The 2nd quote means to me that the unworthiness that you feel should make you go to God every moment of every day because there is no way we are ever perfect. We mess up even if it is in the smallest of ways. To see the grace and love that God gives us but we don't deserve should make us want to run and grab those two things from Him.
Then the 3rd grace I love and that goes with the main quote before I started to write is Perspective and Paul explains it in verse 13. We have the grace to see what other may not be able to see. We have the grace in a hope that others may not have. There is another quote said by my pastor and I think it sums everything on this grace up perfectly, "If I am discouraged now, then it will only get better because I can use it in the bigger story." It is meaning that if something happens that I don't like or understand I don't get mad at God for it. I just have to remember that it will get better because I can use that experience when things come my way again. I can see how I reacted and change that if I need to. I can trust God more or remember to trust Him if I need to. I can try different things out if I need to. I could even share that experience with a friend or a random person while talking about Christ with them and make their lives better for them because they have learned from me and not themselves.
There were also 2 prayers that Paul talked about and those prayers were: Pray for Empowering Presence and Pray for the knowledge of Christ's Love. I know both of those prayers are important but the one that really got to me was the pray for the knowledge of Christ's Love. I'm only going to share about that one in this entry. I love the verses that Paul wrote and that my pastor talked about with this idea and those verses are Eph. 3:17-19a. Here are those verses:
"so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."
Christ's Love is another thing that we can try to have perspective and mystery on. It is a great mystery to many. Some people think "well, if I can see or understand it how can I believe it?" Which I would say to that, "You can see it. It in in His Creation all around us and you might not be able to understand all of it because you can understand a little of it and that is enough." I don't think we are capable of understanding all of His Love because if we did then why would we need to trust Him. If you get what I am saying. Another quote from my pastor about Christ's Love that I think explains it somewhat well and what we need to do with that Love is: "Grasp God's Love, don't just know it." That might be a title for another entry this week and then I can write about what that quote means to me because it could mean a lot.
Take the Journey with Christ. Live out of the grace, love, and ministry that He has given you and you will be heading towards the right direction. The direction where God is leading you.
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