Accept God’s Abundant Grace and Pursue Growth

God’s love set a place for you, in His kingdom, at His banquet table of grace. God sought you, found you, called you beloved, and invited you to feast on the abundance of His grace. This loving grace, in time, transforms us. This grace invites us to be like Jesus.

There is a place that we long to call home. A place exists far from where we were born. Each of us was born far beyond its walls. We were born so far from the Kingdom of God that it sounded and felt like every other story we were told. Then it happened. Jesus found us beyond the walls. He sent people to us. People came to invite us to dine with Him at His banquet table. The invitation was made of grace, and it is grace. This invitation of grace is the first face we saw of God’s love.

As we accept this gracious invitation, its grace is poured out upon us. We find that our eyes now see ourselves with compassion and love. It is through this grace that we come to understand Jesus. We can know Jesus because the grace of God is enough. To dine with the divine is to feast on love in abundance. When the following morning arrives, we discover there is still more than enough grace. Today, there is more grace than I could need in a lifetime, the generous love of God does not hold back but gives in abundance the grace and mercy we need each and every day.

With time, we come to trust in God’s grace. It becomes like the air that we breathe. It is unseen, enveloping, and life-sustaining. It is inescapable. Nowhere is unexplored by His love and grace. It is there in every crevice, depth, distance, and height. It sustains us while being invisible to our eyes. Without seeing it, many can easily move through life without acknowledging its presence. Their eyes look right through the loving grace of God, never noticing it’s there.

Instead, choose gratitude every day for God’s gifts of grace, mercy, and love. Cultivate gratitude that Jesus sought after you with His forgiving grace. The more we cultivate our awareness and gratitude for God’s abundant grace, the more we find ourselves changing.

The first lesson of grace holds a mirror to our soul. It reveals to us who we have been and who we are. There is no hiding from grace, for grace measures us against the perfection of Jesus. Grace contrasts who we are with who Jesus is. We begin to see our way of life compared to the way of Jesus. We walk the journey we are on with our cross and reflect on the journey Jesus took with his. The first lesson of grace concludes with radical acceptance of ourselves and our God.

The final lesson fixes our eyes on the giver of grace. We lock our eyes on God and find that we grow towards him like plants towards the sun. As with all who draw breath, our hope follows our gaze. The longer and deeper we look upon Jesus, the more we long to be like Him. Having accepted ourselves honestly and tragically, we find that we are free to let go and become. We are free to become more like Him, upon whom our eyes are fixed.We come from dust, and to dust we shall return. And yet, in the space between, we get to walk with Jesus. We get to walk towards Him. It is here that we find ourselves among the communion of saints, whose eyes are also fixed on Him. Each of us is trusting that with each step, we will find that He has given us the faith, strength, and hope to keep going. With each step, we find more of the abundant grace that began our journey. Let us grow with each step. May we grow into the heights of hope that sing as our soul turns and stretches towards the glorious light of our savior.

• Meditate on the ways you can cultivate gratitude for the abundance of God’s grace in your life, and in creation.
• Write a personal list of beautiful and lovely ways you have experienced God’s love or grace.
• Reflect on the ways that fixing your gaze on Jesus has invited and inspired you to grow.
• Reflect on how the trajectory of your character has shifted since you began following Jesus.
• Celebrate the abundance of God’s grace and how everyday there is more than enough.
• How has beginning from a foundation of grace changed the way you do things in your life? How might it?
• Grieve the times in your life where you hesitated to accept God’s grace.
• Sit quietly in the loving presence of God. Ask for a deeper appreciation of His grace, for greater awareness of His presence with you, and for gratitude over the growth in your life.
• Celebrate the ways the grace of God has enabled you to pursue growth and change within yourself and your life.
• What would God’s love and grace say to you in contrast to voices (internal, religious, societal, external) that talk down to you with guilt or shame?
• What practices and rhythms help you live out of God’s love and grace?
• Contemplate and be open to the new things God’s grace will reveal to you about yourself.
• How do you navigate the tension between needing to do things, and wanting to live out of invitations from God?
• Grieve the ways you seek to live and grow out of your own ability instead of inviting God to journey and guide you.
• Ask Jesus to give you the faith to endure the cross you carry, and to be tenderly present with you in His grace and love.