“No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.” Gen. 17:5
“Then God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.”" Gen. 17:15
Needless to say, we've put value on names for quite some time.
When I titled my blog "The.Real.Deal", I had purpose in it. For time sake (and attention sake for the fellow A.D.D. peeps out there), I'll let you read about that purpose here. If you've followed my blog since yesterday, I've changed the name about four times. I settled on the title above "Amazing Grace: How Sweet the Sound" for a very big purpose.
In all my years of being a so-called Christian, "grace" didn't always seem so amazing to me. It didn't sound sweet to me.
I mean, sure, it was nice and all and I really liked the idea of it, but it just wasn't all powerful, life-changing, thought-provoking and inspiring to me. It didn't send tingly sensations down my spine which caused me to rise everyday with thoughts of delight towards God.
During one of my mundane, gotta-get-up-or-God-may-strike-me-dead quiet times, I noticed something about the believers in the old days that just didn't add up to my present day experience with God.
“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." Phillipians 1:21
"My soul yearns for you in the night, in the morning my soul longs for you." Isaiah 26:9
Those were a couple verses that seemed to shed a light on the Gospel I hadn't yet seen in my own life. I definitely didn't see or feel it as powerfully as they did. Either they were wrong or I was. But the Bible is littered with tons of people just like them. People who suffered terrible loss, death and pain but still found the grace and mercy of God as GOOD and SATISFYING. It just wasn't adding up for me.
So began my search and a journey down my own winding road, where God would meet me there and take the scales from my eyes so I can see. Even though I wasn't out killing Christians and persecuting those that lived for Jesus, like Paul's Story, I was just as lost. Paul thought he was doing RIGHT by the Lord. The Law came from God. He had understood the Law and all the components of cleaning up the outside appearance, but it was time he knew about the love and grace of God.
If the Gospel up until this point, wasn't life-changing and transforming for me, I had to question if I knew the Gospel in its entirety, or was I following the religion of my parents and serving a God that can be managed, pulling Him out when needed as my own personal genie in a lamp? These were tough questions for me, but I needed answers. On my quest for these answers, God brought us to a place with a pastor who wasn't afraid of questions. Who didn't see our concerns and fears as "blasphemy." Who didn't regard his opinion or ours as something to be considered. He took us to the Bible. He walked us through Scriptures we hadn't seen before in our 20 plus years of serving Christ.
He sent us home equipped with nothing but bible verses and a prayer. He had complete confidence, given those two things, we'd find our answers.
Shortly after, I got to work. Bible in hand, notebook open, and drenched with prayer, I was determined to figure out this Gospel that seemed so compelling. Upstairs, at 5 a.m. the scales fell off. In midst of the silence, tears began streaming down my face. They weren't all happy tears. There were also tears of sadness, and to be honest, a little fear. It felt as if the foundation I had built my life, and my faith on, was crumbling underneath me.
From the outside looking in, nothing much changed that day. I still saw God as my creator, Jesus as my Savior, and myself as His child. But on the inside, in my Spirit, I found out what GRACE was. In an instant it became amazing! Out of nowhere it sounded so sweet I couldn't dry my eyes long enough to read anymore! The Word, after that instant, really did become alive! The story of creation that I've known for years suddenly and vividly became a Love story.
A Sovereign God who chose to create me...
who delighted in my company...
who grieved the day I chose sin over Him...
who rolled up His sleeves...
and said, "Enough! I'm coming down there to save you."
I don't know why God chose to lift the scales from my eyes that day. I count myself blessed to understand the Good News to actually be good. And not just good, but life-changing, transforming and satisfying. I want to take you back to the Cliff Notes of the Creation Story. I pray God shows you some of the key things he has shown me. I want you to notice a few things as you read it.
Ask yourself...
what happened after they sinned?
how did they try and cover themselves?
did they go looking for God or did he come looking for them?
notice that even after they fell, God still provided garments for them..
but, they'd already sewn together fig leaves and tried to cover themselves..
what purpose did God have in creating garments of skin for them?
It's the beginning of a Love story. A grand one at that! Even when we want to hide in our sins, God loves us to much to not come looking for us. And even though we want to offer our good deeds and cover ourselves from God's wrath, he sees it as filthy. So what does a loving Father do? He provides a covering. He shows mercy. He extends grace.
And so begins the journey of putting amazing back into grace...and the purpose of my blog.
May God be glorified in my life and through this blog...always.
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