We are a few weeks into 2024 now … so how are those New Year Resolutions coming? If you’re like most of us, you’ve already broken them. That can leave us feeling frustrated and wanting to give up! I’ll never change!
But here’s the good news – our failure is never final! God uses our failure to teach us that we can’t do it; He never said we could, but He can and always said He would! In his timely devotional, Oswald Chambers writes, “All our promises and resolutions end in denial because we have no power to accomplish them.” How then can we ever change? GRACE! Grace is the power to change! Look at what the Apostle Paul said in what is probably my favour Bible verse:
1 Corinthians 15:10 “By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace to me was not without effect.”
God’s grace to you is not without effect. That word means to cause to change. Your life changing as a follower of Christ is really the result of an exchanged life! It’s not about will power, but God’s power. What else could have changed a man like Paul, bent on “destroying the church,” in Acts 8:3, who went from “house to house (dragging) out the believers, both men and women and threw them into jail,” to become the greatest missionary of the New Testament Church age?
The encounter Paul had with Christ changed his life dramatically! He met grace on a road to Damascus, where he was headed to imprison even more believers for following Christ. What effect did grace have in his life? The same effect it will have in yours and mine.
Grace exchanges our sin for God’s forgiveness; our pain for His promises; our brokenness for His wholeness; our emptiness for His fullness! When confronted with the truth about who Jesus was, shame and guilt could have overwhelmed Paul for all he had done to Christ’s followers. Yet, grace gave him hope and purpose. The man who entered that city was different from the one who left.
Grace gives us the promise for real life change. Grace is God’s power and ability to change us into a new creation in Christ! There is no sin greater than God’s grace! Grace will enable you to accept yourself, and others, as Christ does. Embrace His grace today and notice the effect Christ’s life is having in you! So pray with me now …
Thank you, Father, that my life in Christ is not about my ability to change myself into something that will please You or others. By grace, You accept me just as I am. You have become my life, and Your grace is changing my attitudes and actions. Help me today to extend that same grace to others around me.