YOUR GRACE STILL AMAZES ME... TRANSFORMING LIVES...

TRANSFORMING THURSDAY
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Yesterday, I wrote something that may need clarification, "Once a person encounters the holiness and grace of our loving Creator and Friend, it is with deep sorrow that she mourns her sinfulness...". That is true as the ideal for transformation. Will it happen with every encounter with Jesus? Unfortunately, not the majority of the time.

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I have watched the video from Tuesday over and over and I am amazed at both His HOLINESS and GRACE. The sinless Savior opens His arms to sinful Sinners, asking them to come to Him. Those who choose to do so renounce their spirit for His. "Blessed are the poor in spirit..." Right along with that submission is regret, sorrow, or mourning one's own humanity.

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It is in the daily return to the cross that transformation begins and continues.

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It is briefly looking in the rearview mirror of our lives and letting it serve as a reminder of where we don't want to go again! It is the continual reminder that we are not our own. We were bought with a price!

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It is in remembering all the wonderful things that God has done, is doing, and will do.

If that is hard to do, then He has provided many remembrance stories in scripture. Why not begin by reading Hebrews 11 and finding a few heroes / heroines of faith there.

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Last night I taught elementary children, in Bible class, at our church family's mid-week Bible study. After class, I sat down at the back of the auditorium for the devotional time. A few rows ahead of me were Dwight and Mary Lea. Dwight had had cataract surgery earlier in the day and insisted on being with his church family last night. As I watched them, we were singing a song about a "vision for heaven". Mary Lea looked at Dwight's eyes, smiled really big, and pointed to the words. Watching this wonderful transformed couple reminded me of how thankful I am that God has put these two in my life. For me, knowing Mary Lea for the past 3 and 1/2 years has put her up in my own top 10 heroines of faith!

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Then, I thought of other transformed couples who's lives have been a testimony of His holiness and grace to me. One of those couples are my mother-in-love and father-in-love. Today, she (Robbie Sikes) will also have cataract surgery on one of her eyes. Yet, no matter how much trouble her physical eyes have had seeing, it is her spiritual eyes that have remained - 20/20. This is a woman who way over half a century ago said, "It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me." Her life remains a testimony to those words! For many years, she has been one of my top heroines of faith!

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When I got home last night, I was looking through scriptures that compare and contrast the sinful life and the life turned over to Jesus. I came across these verses that I had not read in a while. As you stand at the foot of the cross today, hear the words of someone who was nearby on that day,

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1 Peter 4:1-8

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• Therefore, since Christ suffered in His body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin.
• 2 As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.
• 3 For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do-living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.
• 4 They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you.
• 5 But they will have to give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
• 6 For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to men in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.
• 7 The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray.
• 8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

~BLESSED~