A Very Happy Thanksgiving to all of you allowing God to write His Story in your life and be lifted up in it. On this Thanksgiving Day, I pray you may live in the wide open spaces of His Grace. May those of you hemmed in with troubles find a Beautiful God in unexpected ways today. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. My Love from Bethlehem where I stood in the cave this Thanksgiving Day---the very place where He was born 2000 years ago. So drawn with you to the Heart of our God! Oh Happy Day!
GOD-STORY NOT MANAGING MY OWN STORY
Romans 4:3 The story we're given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story. Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own. "Trusting Truth, not experiences, nor blessings." 66 LL.
WIDE OPEN SPACES OF GRACE
Romans 5:2 I weep as I read this verse: "We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.
HEMMED IN WITH TROUBLES
Romand 5:3-5 "There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit! And Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. Hang on to His every word. You are dead to self and alive to Christ.
END OF MY ROPE
Romans 7:24 - 25 But we respond: "I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.
Romans 4:6-9 “Fortunate those whose crimes are carted off, whose sins are wiped clean from the slate. Fortunate the person against whom the Lord does not keep score.”
ReplyDeleteHow blessed we are (fortunate but so much more, right?) to be found clean because of the Lord Christ. Each of you are among the pearls of blessing I recount today.
Keep Bev in your prayers for a safe return and a time to ponder all that she’s experienced.
Happy, blessed, fortunate Thanksgiving this day to you and everyone you love!
Love you all,
Annette
Bev, I love that verse--"wide open spaces of Grace!" Anyone that has experienced the fear of being "hemmed in" must especially adore this freedom and vastness of Grace. He is everything to me!
ReplyDeleteTwinkle said:
ReplyDeleteHappy Thanksgiving, fellow pilgrims!
Perfect reading for the day of being thankful. I could hardly come away with "one" thing to treasure and ponder. Every verse packed a solid punch.
So, I randomly choose this one that spoke to me among many others. I am so thankful to call you my sisters, Thankful for being Abraham's daughter by faith. Thankful for God's Story including me. Thankful for Christ and His beautiful gracework.
"Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word."
I am so very thankful that my mother tongue has been rightfully spoken by God instead of listening to the enemy that wants to deceive me. Romans definitely is the right road. May He would created our ears speak our mother tongue to us as we hang on for every word.
November 25, 2010 7:13 AM
ReplyDeleteJHpaintergirl said...
Romans 4:16-"This is why the fulfillment of God's promise depends entirely on trusting God and his way, and then simply embracing him and what he does. God's promise arrives as pure gift. That's the only way everyone can be sure to get in on it, those who keep the religious traditions and those who have never heard of them.
Romans 4: 25--"That's why it is said, "Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right." But it's not just Abraham; it's also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God."