THE GRACE TO GET UP

James 4:6  "But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: "God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble".

Grace.  God's grace, that precious atoning grace.  Without that grace I would not be doing this blog, I would not be singing and worshiping my Lord every Sunday morning in front of people, there is no telling where I might have ended up.  Perhaps no longer on this earth.  How could I even imagine life as it is without the grace of a mighty God that has so much love for me, so much tenderness where I am concerned, so much mercy and so very much grace towards me.  How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.  But then I fell to the side of the path, and because of His grace He brought me back to Himself, put me back on the path He had set for my life and through His grace is keeping me there.

My Lord is working things out for me, working things out of me.  Pride....what a tool of the enemy.  My Lord kind of wiped some more of that from me yesterday as He had me tell of one more characteristic I use to have that He healed in me so I could be even more useful to His kingdom.  I cannot believe this.  I have the broadcast on while I am typing this, it should have been the program from this past Thursday, but no, it is from Monday, also about grace, deciding to follow Jesus.  The Lord never lets me wonder long if I have the right word from Him on what I am to write.  Yes, my Lord, I see Your plan, and I am following You.  Never turning back but continually after You, so close I will be as a shadow of You, of Your righteousness as You continue to prune me, structure me in Your ways, through Your wonderful and precious grace.

Once again, I am off subject, but as it is the Lord and I, you see, you are really just along for the ride, so to speak, on a journey began last year that the Lord is leading me on.  But I am happy you decided to come along, it is a wonderful ride.  I hope you enjoy what the Lord is doing in me, and I pray it blesses you also.

Pride.  This is an area that I am trying to rid myself of.  See, the enemy knows I am proud of being who the Lord is making me; not boastful pride, but just proud of the person I am in Him, liking myself.  Not to brag or anything like that.....Father, is this wrong?  Please let me know about this one for I am not sure of this. I think satan would like me to thing this one is wrong so I would lose that wonderful feeling of loving what You have done with me.  But the pride that the Lord is concerned with is, that pride that comes when we think we are doing this all on our own.  Just look at me, look what I can do, look what I did.  This pride, so silly, for we can do nothing on our own.  I can do nothing save what the Lord does through me.  Nothing is done without His grace.  As He instills His love and care into me, I find myself praying daily, more of You, Lord, more of You, less of me.  I don't want anything inside of me that would cause my Lord not to be pleased with me, and I know He hates pride.

So, the Lord finds an area in me that needs cleansing, some area that has cropped up under the enemy's careful manuvering.  The enemy really has to get subtle with those of us that know his ways, know what to watch for.  So he uses things like making us feel good about some accomplishment, some special thing we did well.  And I don't think there is anything wrong with feeling good about these things, as long as we remember it did not come to us on our own, it did not get done without the beautiful grace of the Father.  But the Lord searches daily, invited to do so, through me and finds anything that is not of Him and cleans it up.  He will not do this without being invited to do so, without being asked to search your heart daily, to cleanse you daily.

It is a very humbling thing to completely expose yourself to the Lord.  It is also very humbling for Him to expose you to the world, as He has done to me many times in these blogs. He does so for my good, for my benefit, for my walk with Him; doing so leaves me completely open to only Him.  You know how you go into a house you want to buy and there is a lot of gunk on the floors.  You can see that underneath those layers and layers of tile or carpet there is a hardwood floor.  You can see the wood is something wonderful but it will take work to clean it all up.  Well, that is what the Lord is showing me. He has taken layer after layer of self, pride, silly notions of life, and just plain ol' me and He is down to the bare, stripped down base.  And now He has begun to polish me up.  And in doing so, sometimes there is something that is still trying to attach itself there that doesn't belong on this refurbished, new, beautiful heart.  So He exposes it to the Light and in doing so, sometimes He uses only the two of us, and other times He has me put it out there for all to see.  I guess I could refuse to do it, but I would be disobedient, I would lose the very prize I so seek.....His presence, His throne room.  So I obey Him, but sometimes fall very low in statue, humbled, exposed.

Grace.....then the grace begins to fall down all over me, flooding over me in a cloud of His glory, healing the spots that He had to polish harder on, shining that area to match the other areas He has completed in me.  His marvelous grace, precious grace that never ends, never stops flowing, always reaching out to me to pick me up, envelop me into His arms of love, His arms of joy.  Wonderful, miraculous, glorious grace.

Blessed, santified, righteous, loved; all words that would describe how He had made me.  What He has done in my heart, my spirit so healed of the past, my soul calm and peaceful.....all because of my Lord's grace.  Grace, grace, God's grace, grace that will pardon and cleanse within; grace, grace, God's grace, grace that is greater than all my sin.  Such a beautiful song, so much truth to this.  It is all by God's grace.  Just God's grace.

My Lord, my precious Beloved Lord, this 15th day of May, 2010, I am under the wonderful annointing of my Lord.  My love is only for You, I love You with all my heart.  I worship You because You have given me the grace to come before You, sit at Your feet and adore You.  It is Your grace, Your grace that allows me to do this, Your grace that invites me in to the Holy of Holies to be with You.  Grace, pure, precious grace.