Promises About God's Grace & Joy

In Christ we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace.  Ephesians 1:7

May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation always say, "Let God be exalted!"  Psalm 70:4

The ransomed of the Lord will return.  They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads.  Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.  Isaiah 51:11

God's Grace Brings Joy

The wonderful and outrageous thing about grace is that you get to be Mary or Martha, and if you really understand grace, both bring joy.  That was one of the hardest lessons for me to learn.  I thought that what I did for Godand others made me loved, but I was really fed up with it.  Now I understand that I am loved by God anyway, even if  I do stay under the bed for a couple of months.  So I enjoy most of my busy days, and when I get a day like today I make a cup of tea, sit down with Christian, and watch the Barney movie for the nine hundredth time.

You see, when you really "get it," really understand that God's grace is enough and will always be there, then you can spin plates, juggle melons, and sing the "Hallelujah Chorus" -- all four parts, all at the same time.  And you'll be sure that God's grace is sufficient even if a few of those melons splatter on the ground!

Sheila Walsh

Promises About God's Life-changing Love

God is love.  Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.   1 John 4:16

Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always happens, always perseveres.  Love never fails.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8

We, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.  2 Corinthians 3:18

God's Love Is Life-Changing

God's love is a gift that can make you forget yourself at times.  The Scottish writer George MacDonald said, "It is the heart that is not yet sure of its God that is afraid to laugh in his presence."

So often with old people and children all sense of what would be appropriate is swallowed up in what feels right.  That's refreshing.  We waste too many years between childhood and our older years measuring our behavior on a scale we think we see in someone else's eyes.

God loves us as we are right now!  That's one of the things I'm most grateful for.  I love the freedom to be myself in God.  I pray that a year from now, five years from now, I will be a godlier woman, but I know God won't love me any more than he does right this minute.

Sheila Walsh