I don't have to, I get to!

We are just a day away from boarding our flight in Atlanta...Africa bound! The planning of our trip has had many ups and downs and failed plans, but the sure constant through it all is God. There is such freedom in knowing that NOTHING catches Him off guard nor does a change in plans cause Him to wonder. He reigns sovereign over ALL THINGS!

Colossians 1:17...And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

I just wanted to share briefly how I have felt about this trip all along. The title post of this blog pretty much sums it up. Because of the tremendous grace Christ has extended to me on the cross, I am free to live in Him and share that grace and love with others. Deep within my soul, I believe that God has written a story from beginning to end and has given us some of that story to read in His Word...the Bible. This Word is about God making everything right again, through Jesus, for His glory. Period. Because God sent His Son into this world to live the perfect life (in my place, that I cannot live) and die on the cross the penalty FOR MY SIN (in my place) and pay the debt of sin that I could NEVER pay, I can live each day in freedom! I don't have to live in debt to the One who paid it all because He already paid it! He knows who I am and all of my failures because He created me, but also created a way for me to have a relationship with Him!

That is why I go on this trip.

That is what I try to show and teach my kids every day (and oh, how I fail miserably, but His grace is enough!)

I am free to fail because Christ has won!

There is no obligation to perform or pretend because He loves me just where I am.

I can lay my head down every night and rest in the grace that He paid it all. I don't have to try to live some perfect life, because He ALREADY did.

But OH, how this makes me run to Him and want, MORE THAN ANYTHING to be used by Him and to be a part of the story He is writing.

How I LONG to be a faithful servant to the One who gave me LIFE and EVERY good and perfect gift (James 1:17)

Please read these words out of Philippians 2 and let them soak into your being today. Rest in the grace of the cross! IT IS FINISHED!!!

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2: 5-11)