Grace And Discipline

I Am a note taker. I'm finding that as I get older I have to write things down.....everything down.....to make me remember. I heard a message about grace and discipline......and took a page of notes.

Grace is getting what we don't deserve. I've drilled this into the heads of the kids we taught in youth group for years. I'm hoping that now that they are in their 20s they still remember my voice and the definition of this word. Think about all the things you have that you don't deserve. Well....I don't deserve a lot, but God sees fit for me to have it anyway.....that's grace. Think about breathing, or a heart beating and staying in rhythm? Just the fact I can get up out of bed without pain, or remember my son needed a stick of deodorant from the store is full of grace from God. These are little things we take for granted, but we shouldn't. We all know everything can change in a heartbeat. Life as we know it can be totally turned upside down in a split second, so we should know not to take anything for granted, but we always do. We are human. We look for routine and some adjust easier to change than others. We can find grace in all of this, if we look for it.

I heard this quote yesterday...."grace is not a license to do nothing". This hit me in that how many times do we not do anything because we need to pray awhile.....or wait for God to move.....or let God lead me? I'm not saying all these things are bad to practice, but when we are sitting stagnant "waiting" for God to give a sign or move our feet for us, we have a problem. Yes, we are given grace, but that doesn't mean we can be lazy. Yes, I believe everything happens in Gods timing, but we can't just sit idly by and do nothing in the meantime.

This is where discipline comes in. We all struggle with something. I've written a few things about temptations.....so I'm aware of struggles in my own life. We were encouraged yesterday to find the things in our life that are hindering our walk with God or what we could be doing for Him. If we struggle reading our Bible and praying, set a goal to wake up 10 minutes earlier in the morning to use the extra time for study......or if you aren't very outgoing, practice speaking the gospel to a friend before you try on someone else, to build your confidence. If You struggle with prayer, pray more today than you did yesterday. Set small goals and once you meet them, increase the goal a little more. This is discipline. When the motivation is there and we have enough of it, we can do anything for our
God. As time goes on we will be able to do more and more for our God and His kingdom without as much effort. We will have disciplined ourselves to a new way of life.

So....grace should humble us in making us love our God so much we want to live for Him and tell everyone about His love and mercy toward us. All God ever wants is for His children to love Him and give Him his due glory. That's why we praise Him. All for Him......all for His glory.