Grace And Gratitude Analysis

Grace and Gratitude

When I recognize the state of gratitude in which my heart is enveloped, I immediately embrace the Grace of God! I would never know true gratitude if it were not for God’s grace.

As a surrendered life to Christ, my intentions on earth are good. However, I live a human life, wretched and sinful by the simplest measures perhaps unrecognizable to most, yet blatantly known to God. In this truth I find comfort. I know that no matter how hard it gets when attempting to behave as Jesus would have me in the face of any and all adversity, “God gives me Grace!” He already knows my heart and my failures even before I experience them. He set up a way for me to be redeemed and to overcome through His son, Christ Jesus. He did this for me through grace, and He offers His love and blessings to me regardless of me. I can’t buy God’s grace. I can’t gain God’s grace by doing good deeds. God freely grants it to me, and you, simply because He loves us, who are undeserving of His love. This act of grace is nearly unfathomable as a human being! My entire being melts to ground at His feet where I wade in pool of gratitude for this benevolent undeserving gift, His grace. The moment we start to think that we deserve His grace because we are good or righteous, is a moment when we are seriously misguided and in danger. We are not perfect. We are not God. The best of us are like filthy rags when compared to His holiness. “…all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” Isaiah 64:6

The word translated "grace" in the New Testament comes from the Greek word charis, which means “favor, blessing, or kindness.” …when the word grace is used in connection with God, it takes on a more powerful meaning.

Grace is God choosing to bless us rather than curse us as our sin deserves. It is His benevolence to the

undeserving.

There isn’t a day in my life that goes by without prayer and petition for God to lead me through every encounter, to act according to His will. And there isn’t a day in my life that goes by without failing to be all I pray to be in His sight. For as long as I am human on this earth, I will fail. This understanding took time to take hold within me after I surrendered my life to Christ. In that blissful moment, I felt the arms of heaven wrap around me and I allowed myself to think that my surrendered life on earth would grant me the ability to be perfect. But that’s not reality. For as long as I am on the earth, I will live as a human being, imperfect and fallible no matter what I do. For me, this is the most humbling truth and “gift” to be thankful for, after the gift of redemption and eternal life through Christ. “…but by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain…” 1 Cor 15:10

Lately I have been grateful for turning my life over to Christ and using my gift of songwriting to glorify God as it was meant to do. I’ve been thinking about who I was before I surrendered my life to Christ, and how I went about life using my gift of songwriting to appeal to the world and it’s massive marketing of sex and promiscuity to sell products, including music. I fell trap to that machine before I was saved, and am awestruck and dumbfounded that God actually forgave me for doing that with the gift he gave me. I’m still amazed! He graced and blessed me far beyond my imagination and wiped that slate clean. I wanted to share those results with you here in this blog, to witness the massive transformation that came, by the grace of God. Below is a sample of what I wrote then, and what I write now, as a surrendered life to Christ.

I have so much to be grateful for, but today and during this Thanksgiving Holiday, I just want to be grateful for the transformation in me through His Grace.

BIG LOVE, BIG, THANKSGIVING LOVE!