Grace, Grace: God’s Grace

Scripture

The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me.

~Psalm 18:20, NIV

Quote

Everything is GRACE.

~Ya’akov

The verse above is David’s prayer from Psalm 18. I used the Psalms in my daily prayers but I have to restate them sometimes because I cannot pray this prayer in good conscience. Surely this took place when David was young. His entire prayer reeks with self-righteousness and pride. Note on the emphasis on David and the possessive pronouns…my righteousness, my clean hands, and my obedience. Then note the “I have’s”...I have been blameless, I have kept Your ways, I have not turned away from Your decrees, and I have kept myself from sin. David even says, “I am not guilty of turning from God ever.” I can’t say any of these things in good conscience. Well, we all know that David was unfaithful and none of the above was actually true of himself. He was not righteous, he did not have clean hands nor a pure heart. He was not blameless or perfectly obedient but Jesus was all these things and more. Jesus is in every Psalm and He is certainly in this one. In describing himself from an idealistic point of view, David describes Jesus. As I was writing my morning prayer, I just reversed everything and made an honest confession. Lord, I am not blameless, I am not innocent, I am not righteous, I am not perfectly obedient…etc. and then asked Him by grace to make me these things.

I’ve been praying this outrageous prayer for about a week. I am asking God to humble the US Congress and the media. I am praying for their house of cards [lies] to come crashing down on their heads. I am praying for the media to embarrass themselves before the nation. I am praying for Pelosi and Schumer to be removed from office. You probably think I am crazy and you may be right but if I don’t tell you what I’ve ask for, God can’t get glory when He does it. To make things even crazier, I am asking Him to do this by February first. Of course, the devil chimed in and said, “You can’t pray this prayer, America does not deserve God’s intervention.” This put me to thinking…Do we as American’s deserve God’s intervention? No! But did we deserve His intervention when He sent His Son [the incarnation]? Have we ever deserved His intervention? Have we ever deserved an answer to prayer? Has God ever related to us or blessed us due to our goodness? Have we ever been in a state of pure innocence? Listen folks, everything is GRACE.

I will tell you this: I woke up this morning with a burden and a prayer on my heart and God answered that prayer before I could finish my morning prayer time. Less than two weeks ago, someone came to me with a problem and basically asked me to fix it. I probably did some stuttering and hem-hawing. I did make the promise that I would pray about the problem. Within the week, God answered this prayer. A couple of weeks ago, I was praying for God to give us wisdom on buying a church van or bus. One of our men located a mini-bus and so he called me. I was very busy but I prayed for God to give us wisdom and guidance. Then I called Charles Sanders and ask if he could check the situation out. He graciously obliged. He liked it and sent me a pic and I liked it. He picked up two of our men, Bill Southern and Don Murphy and they went to buy the van. When it came time to pay the man: He said, “I am donating the van to the church in memory of my wife.” You call it whatever you want to call it, but I call it an ANSWER TO PRAYER.

Beautiful day but I have things I must do and I will not get to take advantage of this lovely weather. What a glorious day! Thank you Jesus. LORD, if you want it to snow, let it snow.

Marlon Cole’s brother is critically ill and has been this way for the last three weeks. He is in Decatur General. Charles Sanders brother in law passed away in the night. No arrangements have been made at this time. Mrs. Edit Orr is critically ill at Falkville Nursing Home. Lou Hayes may move to Falkville Nursing home today. Terry Cole had a bit of a sit back, I will be checking on him today, LORD willing.

I was thrilled with our offering for SAV-A-LIFE yesterday. Way to go GRACE POINT. The offering was 325$ and someone has been convicted to add 75$ and make it a $400 offering. You did great GPBC. Your pastor is proud of you. We finished up I Peter at DBC last night and will begin a series from the Sermon on the Mount next Sunday night. Dr. Kelly will be a DBC this Sunday morning. Folks, you need to invite everyone you know. This man is special: you need to hear him. I will listen via Facebook but if you can be there in person, you need to go. Don’t make excuses, make plans.

God bless you: have a great day. Get out there and enjoy this lovely sunshine. Today is TLC’s birthday. She may be the big 5-0, if not, she is getting close. Compared to me, she is a kid.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *