Day 40: Redeemed

Redeemed shares a lot of good ideas about God's grace and redemption.  It talks about being made new through God's grace.  Part of the song goes like this:

Because I don't have to be the old man inside of me
'cause his day is long dead and gone because
I've got a new name, a new life I'm not the same
and a hope that will carry me home

Something else that I have learned about my identity is that I am not defined by one moment in my life.  I am not defined by my worst day, month, year and I am not defined by my best.  God doesn't keep a record of my achievements and my failures.  That is something we often do as human beings.  We keep our own record of wrongs and think, after all of this, how could I ever be worthy?

We can't control the gift of grace, we can only choose to receive it.  God gives it out in abundance, but sometimes I find myself too prideful to accept it.  On the giving end, we see charity as a great and honorable thing. On the receiving end of charity, we struggle.  If someone offered me food stamps today I would say, well, I'm not in need.  I would even go as far as to say I don't want those.  We often struggle with receiving help - we don't want to seem incapable or unable.  

God knows what we need and we need His grace.  We do need to humble ourselves to receive God's grace.  God's grace does not make us less worthy.  Our worth is constant because God is constant.  

~SP