Thank God for Grace...
Scripture: James 4:6; And he gives grace generously. As the Scriptures say,
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come close to God, and God will come close to you.
Observations: As we celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday, we acknowledge our desperate need for God’s grace. We have sinned, personally and nationally, over the years. There have been unrighteous people who have done unrighteous, even evil things, over the years. We are not proud of this. So we humble ourselves before God, each on behalf of our own sin, but also on behalf of the people. We embrace His grace, there is no shame in knowing how desperately we need Jesus. We resist the Devil and his attempts to deceive, divide and destroy our relationships and our nation. He flees when we resist him, just like he left Jesus in the wilderness. We come close to God every day, and we invite Him to bring about His sovereign purposes for this, our land. The United States of America. And God comes close to us.
Application: Grace. Realizing our imperfection and acknowledging God’s provision of grace in our life. Last night we had a staff picnic out at Silver Lake at Camp Saturna. The camp has an amazing climbing wall with auto-belays. Before you climb, you put on the harness and tie in to the auto-belay. There were kids as young as 5 years old climbing the wall, getting as high as they could. Our 13 year old grandson Wil made it up to the top and rang the bell 3 times. Our 11 year old grand daughter Ava made it higher than me; I only made it halfway. My arms got fatigued and I let go, and when I did, the auto-belay caught me and gently lowered me back to the ground. But I had to trust the harness and the belay. That’s grace. God catches us when we fall, and gently puts our feet back on solid ground. As we climb the rock walls of relationship and leadership, and as our country is led by imperfect people, we will all fall sometimes, or get fatigued and let go, and we need to trust in His grace to catch us and set us back on our feet, on solid ground. God has faithfully done this for the USA for 250 years, and will continue to give grace when needed, to each of us, and to this great land that He has blessed.
Prayer: Jesus, thank You for always catching us with Your grace when we get fatigued and fall.
