Pearl #5: Complete Your Grace Assignment Yesterday’s blog issued the challenge to pray for a grace assignment. But sometimes when God sends the assignment, our reaction is much like the look on this little guy’s face. Our thoughts may be, “You want me to love her…you want me to extend grace to him…you’re asking me to let this one go?” In Luke 9:62 Jesus said, No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God. When we pray and ask for an assignment, we are effectively putting our …
Pray for a Grace Assignment
Pearl #4: Pray for a Grace Assignment Have you ever asked God for a job you can’t do on your own? Have you considered praying as you go into Walmart…or as you driving to your family reunion…or going to that committee meeting…on your way to work: “God give me a job I can’t do on my own. Give me an assignment that I can only complete in you and through you.” What would you be willing to do if you knew you could not fail because you and God were doing it together? Would you ask Him for a supernatural …
Choose Not To Be Offended
Pearl #3: Choose Not To Be Offended And then there will be those situations where context is not the problem. The person before you has chosen to be rude, disrespectful, or right-down mean. But their behavior should not dictate how you respond. If another person elicits a response from you that is not Christ-like, then you have demonstrated the person before you has more control over you than the Holy Spirit. Are you controlled by a 2-year-old…by a rude waitress….or by God Almighty? Proverbs 19:11 says, A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook …
Put It All in Context
Pearl #2: Put It All in Context My husband gave me a bouquet of roses for Valentine’s Day. One of them, as you can see in this picture, is dying and looking pretty bad. I plucked that one out and tossed it. I didn’t throw out all the other beautiful roses just because one in the bunch was ugly. I didn’t choose to condemn my whole bouquet because of one bad flower. But yet…do we sometimes do that in our relationships? Do we fixate on the ONE time our hubby got it wrong…instead of the 99 other times he got …
Turn Off the Search Button
Pearl #1: Turn Off the Search Button The magnifying class has become the universal symbol for searching. Whether you are in Microsoft Word or any other computer program, you can click on the magnifying glass, enter a key word, and voila – the computer will find that one word in the midst of all the other words. Are you and I unconsciously looking for a reason to be offended and to, therefore, stop the flow of grace? Is there a person in your life that you have decided is difficult, unkind, troublesome, and so you have your magnifying glass out …
Pearls of Grace
Parable of the Unmerciful Servant: 10,000 talents vs.100 denari Matthew 18:21-35 In this story, a king comes to a servant to settle up. The servant owes him 10,000 talents. The man can’t pay. Under the law, the king has the right to sell the man’s wife and children as slaves to repay the debt. That was the law. But when the man fell to his knees and begged for more time, the king took pity. He extended grace. He did more than give more time — he cancelled the debt altogether. The same man, who had received this huge gift …