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How blessed are we that there’s grace here; that our God is a God of grace. Jesus is the King of fresh starts. He is the author of new life. He is the giver of second chances. His grace erodes and it forms, but it does not condemn.
I love that grace is so engrained in World Race culture. They almost force it on you. They give you so much grace that even when you feel like you don’t need it, they make you take a little more. Our team functions by grace. It has to. Grace is our commodity and our fuel. This grace is never easy and never free but it is necessary. It is our most important possession. Grace is our Savior’s song and we’re to pick up the tune. It is a grace that empowers, a grace that encourages and permits. It is a grace that fosters intentionality and growth, drive and passion. It wraps us up and tucks us in at night, and we wear it around during the day, putting on as much as we’re able. Love is the intention behind this grace, and thank the Lord we have such a perfect example.
Every day is a fresh start, and this grace never wears out, for it is new every morning. That is our hope in feedback, in community, in ministry, in worship, in righteousness, in personal growth, in identity, in compassion, in gentleness, in peaceful resolution, in commitment to the Lord, in understanding, in patience. Without grace we can’t move forward. Without grace, no one has permission to call me out when I’m in the wrong. Without grace, no one has the authority to push me into my full potential, where every one of my eventual moves, thoughts, and intentions reflect Jesus Christ in all His glory, all His grace.
Grace to give and grace to get. How precious is He that the footsteps in which we’re meant to walk have already been laid out for us; there is a mountain of grace already waiting for me that He’s guiding me patiently towards.
I move into Month 2 with a reverence for grace. With a hunger for it. With an intense need for it. I wake up to Month 2 so very thankful for a fresh start, and for 9 more fresh starts to come, and then a million more after that. That we can learn from our mistakes and stand on top of where we finished empowered, rather than battered and beaten back down at where we started. I move into Month 2 with a passion for the Lord, to know Him and experience His love in all new ways, a million times what I knew last month. To proffer even more grace and more thankfulness, to walk even more surely in the grace He’s already spilled at my feet. I move into Month 2 not necessarily refreshed, but hopeful, and wiser, and stronger for it. The dazzling aura of Singapore’s skyline could still be made out in the early morning darkness when we arrived in Darwin, and as the sun still rose steadily in the sky, turning the dark to grey to a warm blue, the Lord’s faithfulness in His investment in our growth was all the more illuminated.
I don’t want another Month 1. I had a wonderful month, but Lord, I don’t need to repeat it. I want Month 2 to be different, to be better. I want to learn more and know more and let Him do more work in me. And that’s hard to say sometimes, with honesty, that you actually want that. And maybe for the last couple days I wasn’t sure if I did. Growth is painful. It is humbling and challenging and invasive and blind, and it is hard to maintain trust and vulnerability when it takes a butcher’s knife to make you into the person Jesus knows you need to be. But our Lord only moves in one direction, and if I’m to have any of Him, I need to move the way He’s moving. And that requires all the more trust, all the more vulnerability, all the more submission, and of course, all the more grace.
So pour it out Lord and I’ll jump in. Shower down your grace and I’ll let you wash me in it. It’ll be slow, it’ll be painful, but I will wait for you. Thank you in advance for the wonderful work you’re doing in each of us, and that by your grace you’ve even granted us a month 2. Keep my eyes to serve, my hands to learn.
We need grace this morning. We need it as a lamp for my feet, and as bread for my sustenance, and as recompense for all the things we’ve said and done, and for all the things we’re sure to say and do. How great is our God that He knows our needs before we do, and that His gifts are already here simply waiting for us to open them.
Love, Danny
