Inhale (Exhale): Breathing in Grace and Living Out HopeExemplo

For years, I (Bart) often asked myself, “How can I stand on a stage with a mic night after night and tell thousands of people, ‘Jesus loves you’ yet always exclude someone? Well, namely me. The bottom line is for far too long, while I believed that God loves everyone, I struggled to receive the truth for myself. I had no trouble accepting that He died and rose again for you. I just wrestled with Christ’s sacrifice being for me. My life was about “trying harder to live like a Christian” instead of trusting in His power to transform me by His Spirit. Steeped in religion, I was desperate for grace. Let me explain with this analogy: I was drowning and in need of rescue. I was in no shape to help anyone save me, fully at the mercy of the Lifeguard. But when He would swim up to help me, I’d keep flailing away in the water, trying to stay afloat by myself, and fight off His offer. But as a child of God, a follower of Christ, as an adult, married with five kids, I finally came to the realization that I couldn’t save myself and stopped trying. Jesus pulled me up from sinking and set me on the shore. Then the realization hit me that Someone had saved me. How could I possibly ever repay that Person? No one needed to remind me to be grateful, because I was fully alive with a new lease on life. Nothing would ever be the same. I finally discovered that God’s grace and His Gospel are inseparable. I accepted that He didn’t make grace some elusive optional accessory, but a standard feature. But if that’s true, why do so many of us struggle with this simple concept like I did for decades after receiving Christ’s salvation? As he shared in today’s passage, Saul-turned-Paul’s life makes his transformation to a full-on grasp of grace so incredible to inspire all of us recovering religion addicts. Inhale God’s hope, courage, and expectation. Take in the fact that this grace is fully available right now. Rescue has arrived for you. You can let Him know you are ready to let go and receive the gift. If you have received God’s gift of salvation, the question today is: have you accepted His grace into your life, the fact that He truly loves you?