The Canopy of Grace
“Generous in love—God, give grace!
Huge in mercy—wipe out my bad record.
Scrub away my guilt, soak out my sins in your laundry.
I know how bad I’ve been; my sins are staring me down.”
Psalm 51:1-3 The Message
I was surrounded by people of dubious character.
Many of those around me had very unsavory backgrounds. They had serious flaws. There were people who had stolen, committed adulterous affairs, lied on a regular basis, had fought the battle with alcohol and drugs … and had lost badly.
Some had broken faith with family and friends. There were others who had bent the laws of ethical business. And because of these ugly backgrounds some had been incarcerated for their crimes.
Because of their pasts, these folks had become angry, bitter, hopeless, futureless and fearful.
But that was before today. Today they’re sitting around me in church and you should see them!
Shame has gone, replaced with confidence. Humiliation has turned to comfortable self-acceptance. Fear has been replaced by faith. There is no ‘head hanging’ here. Instead both hands and heads are raised in celebration of new life, fresh starts and regained futures.
And how can a roomful of losers show this kind of joyful reaction to life? How can they have so completely been separated from their past that it no longer defines their lives? Is there an adequate explanation for this mass regeneration and newfound buoyancy in life? There is.
You see, we’re sitting under a canopy of grace!
The Apostle Paul knew something about turnarounds and redemption. He explained it this way: “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” II Corinthians 5:17 New Living Translation The Amplified Bible states it like this: “Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!”
That means that for me and my friends seated around me God didn’t simply paste pictures of new parts over the broken ones in our lives. He gave us new hearts and parts. He didn’t simply modify behavior … He remade us from the inside out. We weren’t temporarily fixed … we were changed forever.
It’s true what you’ve heard. Christians aren’t perfect; they’ve been forgiven. And a church isn’t where you go to see perfect people. The church is where you go to find people who aren’t the people they used to be. It’s a weekly display of some of God’s most awesome work!
We do indeed live under the canopy of God’s grace.
Have you subscribed to Fresh Heart For a New Week videos on YouTube? Click here for the latest: http://youtu.be/OBqCJ0HtSII
This is nicely put. .
xunjie 冬2013パリファッションウィークオートは、
その反抗的なスタイルを強調するために、
ニューヨークの路上に現れたのドレス感覚として「紳士」されているパンクテーラードジーンズの本格的な風味に加え、 ラルフローレン メンズ カーディガン
ネットワーク9コメント:深いVネック1ボタンスーツ、
良い結婚LisaS美しい森に言った、
ハイウエストのショートパンツ+タイツ+カラーウールのストッキングは雪の中で非常に暖かく、 カルティエ 万年筆
ペン先 色鮮やかな色彩の独特な感覚が人気に始まったままですが、
付き合って5回を取りません!黄色スカートベストTOPSHOP TOPSHOP TOPSHOPデニムシャツ混合色がFOREVER ASOS.COMコンバースキャンバスシューズの波のポイントの長い金属ネックレスダイヤモンドリングハンドバッグ赤ハイウエスト21チャンネルホームに入るためには画像をクリックしてフォーエバー21
より多くの面倒な税関手続きは、Montegrappa
万年筆 彼らの短い髪のスタイルを見て、
あなたが今日のあなたの最高の優雅な女性を放棄する意思があるのだろうか?だから、
すべての外観は人の新感覚をもたらすことができるの制服の誘惑奇妙な呉のMoを上演した、
いくつかの茶色のドットを見つけるために、
ドクターマーチン ブーツ レディース
For hottest information you have to visit world-wide-web and on web I found
this website as a finest web site for most up-to-date updates.
Success begets success, to more than a small degree. This is
convenient in case if a programmer or trader provide their program for
usage but doesn. If the investor feels the prices will move up then he must buy
the binary option contract to recover the total value of the
contract. This trading option might apparently seem as a completed
effort, but since binary trading are derivative contracts, finance
& exchange markets do not have to play much role in it. These digital contracts involve short term speculation on the movement of
an assets price and can see a trader up and running in just a
matter of minutes. In this, the user undergoes a fixed
amount of loss and on the other hand, the profits are found to be unlimited.
Le corps est le véhicule de l’énergie céleste, qui elle-même
nourrit le corps et les chakras à travers le chakra coronal.
This post will assist the internet people for setting up new webpage or even a
blog from start to end.
There is definately a great deal to learn about this topic.
I love all of the points you have made.
, you will obtain a 15% payback on his initial investment.
When decompiled, the DLL code is translated into the Assembler (ASM) machine language.
The key categories of underlying assets are stocks, commodities, currencies and indices.
By putting a PUT (sell) alternative above a CALL (buy) alternative, it
is practically guaranteed that at least one trade will
likely be profitable. With such a platform people no
longer have to sit behind their computer screens to assess market
trends and know when to trade. There are many
things that an average trader overlooks when making trading
decisions.
Oh my goodness! Incredible article dude! Thank you, However I am
having issues with your RSS. I don’t understand why I cannot
join it. Is there anybody else having the same RSS issues?
Anybody who knows the answer will you kindly respond?
Thanx!!
I do trust all the concepts you’ve presented in your post.
They are very convincing and can definitely work. Nonetheless, the posts are too quick for beginners.
May just you please lengthen them a bit from next time?
Thank you for the post.
I’m not sure why but this web site is loading extremely
slow for me. Is anyone else having this problem or is it a issue on my end?
I’ll check back later and see if the problem still
exists.
Can I simply say what a relief to uncover somebody that truly understands what they are discussing on the web.
You certainly understand how to bring an issue to light and make it important.
More people should check this out and understand this side of
the story. I was surprised that you aren’t more popular since you
definitely have the gift.
The customers also get good discount rates when they buy
games CD online India. Also included are exclusive and new guides and tips and tricks that your gaming experience much easier.
With bike racing games, kids and young adults will be entertained the whole time.
Pretty great post. I just stumbled upon your weblog and
wanted to say that I have really loved surfing around your weblog
posts. After all I’ll be subscribing in your rss feed and I am hoping you write once more very soon!
Hi there, all the time i used to check weblog posts here early in the daylight, since i enjoy to
learn more and more.
However, there may be more truth to those words than originally thought.
Kim Kardashian happily tweets messages about Kanye West when they are hanging out
together, whether it is a picture of her hand covered in jewelry or a picture of their shoes together.
Many players are reporting that they’ve had to uninstall
Kim Kardashian: Hollywood as to keep themselves
playing this highly addictive game for hours on end.
I think everything typed was actually very logical.
However, what about this? suppose you added a little information? I mean, I don’t wish to tell you how
to run your blog, but suppose you added a title to maybe get
folk’s attention? I mean The Canopy of Grace –
Fresh Heart Ministries by Paul Walterman is kinda vanilla. You should glance
at Yahoo’s home page and see how they create post titles to get people
to click. You might add a related video or a related pic
or two to get readers excited about everything’ve written. Just my opinion, it
might make your posts a little bit more interesting.