Walking in the Word with Breast Cancer

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved- - Ephesians 2:4-5 We are so dead in our trespasses and sins we are only vaguely aware of our guilt before God—guilt that requires His mercy. We try to avoid our guilt by looking at others as worse sinners than we are. But, comparing ourselves to anything or anyone other than God and His standards produces a false result. When it comes to measuring up to God’s expectations, the Bible is very clear: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We’re all dead because we’ve all sinned.  But God is rich in mercy—and His mercy flows out of the great love with which he loved us. This divine mercy is personal, intimate, and completely unexpected. God is merciful out of His abundant stores, and lovingly pours mercy over our lives. Every heartbeat, every breath, every ho...

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved- - Ephesians 2:4-5 Dealing with the heart wrenching trial of loving prodigals, these verses are ministering to me today. For those of you who have a loved one who seems far from Christ, I pray you can see the same Hope in these verses that I am this morning.  The enemy can lie to us when we love a prodigal - especially to a mother's heart. When we have a prodigal child, we can begin to think they are too far away, or that God won't answer prayers for them because they stand in opposition to God, or that He is leaving them in their sin and going to let His full wrath unleash on them. What if He doesn't reach out to my sons?  What if He lets them go because they aren't responding?   The lies of the enemy fill our hearts with fear and send us spiraling into despair as the...

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved- - Ephesians 2:4-5 In the moments of heartache we face, our trials can seem like the greatest crisis we have ever known. But the reality is that while life may throw all kinds of challenging circumstances and heartbreaking situations at us, none of them can compare to the greatest crisis we will ever face - eternal separation from Christ.  Anything we are walking through today is but a blip in the grand scheme of eternity. Until Christ was sent to rescue us, we were condemned to an eternity separated from Him. This is our greatest crisis. But God - who loves us with an unending love, poured out grace and mercy on our broken lives, and chose to save us.  He chose to save us from an eternity in hell, and made us alive together with Christ simply because He loves us.  Pause...

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.  —Ephesians 2:4-5 We are to be humbled by the free gift of His mercy every day. But the reality is that we are often so dead in our trespasses and sins, we are only vaguely aware of our guilt before God—guilt that requires His mercy.  We often try to avoid our guilt by looking at others as greater sinners than we are. We justify our actions by comparing ourselves to the sin of others, leaving us deep in the sin of judging others. Comparing ourselves to anything other than God brings us up short. The world will tell us that we're "not that bad," and so we avoid the guilt. When we are deep in a conflict with a difficult person, we can only see the sin of the other person. We justify our attitude and our actions because of what they did. Or we look at another’s struggle with sin a...

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved- - Ephesians 2:4-5 The most important truth in all of Christianity is stated right here: We are made alive together with Christ. So never think of yourself in any other way - you are together with Christ.  The whole work of the enemy is to get you to disbelieve that truth and convince you that you are just an ordinary individual, struggling through life on your own.  When he gets you to believe his lies, it’s easy to fall into the trap that we somehow have rights to certain things in this world. You try to make it the best way you can, mobilizing all your human resources to try to get ahead of the other people, or looking for your fulfillment in this world. Your focus becomes about your own comfort, your own security, your own needs.  And suddenly you find yourself in a pit,...

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved- - Ephesians 2:4-5 All of God’s wrath, all of the condemnation we deserve, was poured out on Jesus when He hung on the cross. All of God’s demands for perfect righteousness were fulfilled by Christ in that moment.  At the instant we receive His gift of salvation, which is offered to us by His grace, God becomes for us - 100%, forever, for us. His death took the place of our death, the condemnation poured out on Him took the place of our condemnation...so his righteousness becomes our righteousness.  God becomes 100% irrevocably FOR us forever in that instant.   Think about that for a minute. The God who created this big, beautiful universe is FOR us, the One who is sovereign over all things is FOR us, the One who is able to save and to destroy, He is FOR us. Everything He a...

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved- - Ephesians 2:4-5 We know from scripture that we are often so dead in our sin that we are truly blind to it. We simply cannot see what He sees in our hearts, or what others see in us. Our own pride and focus on self blocks our ability to see the truth. People try to point it out to us, but we grow defensive, justifying our reason for feeling the way we do or acting in a certain way. One of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn is how to listen to the truths people were trying to share with me about me. It’s so hard to take those truths because we don’t want to recognize that they are who we truly are. It’s hard to hear the truth about ourselves and it hurts. But think about the flip side - it’s pretty easy to see another person’s faults that they struggle to see. If we are to grow more l...