Everyday life on the World Race is tremendously different than life back home in North Carolina. Back home I searched for ways to please the Lord by trying fill my life with good deeds and blessing others. I tried to EARN approval from man and more approval from the Lord by my actions and what I could do in my own power. While those things are good when your heart and intentions are in the right place, I know that my heart was never in it. I tried so hard to make myself a better person that I completely left out God and the work of the Holy Spirit in my life. Over time I became frustrated and felt numb to the presence of God, I had lost all communication with the Lord. I spent so much time trying to do it on my own and ignoring what God was trying to say that I couldn’t hear him anymore. So when it came to making decisions in life I did the best I could but often it lead me to disaster, relationships failed, mediocre friendships, damaged witness in the eyes of unbelievers, falling into temptations, and not being the Light in the darkest places.
Now… God has shown me truth. I don’t need to earn anything from man, I don’t have to try to earn God’s approval, I already have it!!! By the grace of God we have His approval! Not by our doing but by what Christ did on the Cross, by the blood that was shed, by the life that was given, and the life that was resurrected to sit at the right hand of God!! Yes we are called to perform miracles in His name, to heal the sick, to look after widows and orphans, and we should do these things out of obedience to the WILL of God and not because we feel we have to in order to be seen as righteous. When the Lord looks at me and you He sees Christ, He sees a redeemed and holy people. To think any other way is like saying what Christ did on the cross isn’t enough, that our sins were not covered by His sacrifice. Those who accept the free gift of salvation are made new (2 Corinthians 5:17), they are given the right to be called children of the Lord (1 John 3:1).
