I had a dream that I was walking on the beach and about twenty yards away I looked and there stood Jesus wading in the water. i ran to him with all my might and we embraced, as we walked along the shore we spoke of many things that he knew were in my heart and like a beautiful string of pearls I gave them all to him.
as we walked the sea began to dance and sing and dolphins began to dance as if they too enjoyed worshipping him!
After our walk Jesus came into the place he prepared for me and we sat for what seemed hours, days, years but there is no time with him.
“The fact is that sin is a bigger disaster than we think it is and grace is more amazing than we seem to be able to grasp that it is. No one who really understands what Scripture has to say about the comprehensive, every-aspect-of-your-personhood altering nature of sin would ever think that anyone could muster enough motivation and strength to rise to God’s standard of perfection. The thought that any fallen human being would be able to perform his or her way into acceptance with God has to be the most insane of all delusions. Yet we all tend to think that we are more righteous than we are, and when we think this, we have taken the first step to embracing the delusion that maybe we’re not so bad in God’s eyes after all.” Paul Tripp
You better pray everyday
You better read your Bible every day.
You better join the choir, teach Sunday school, be a missionary, or do some kind of ministry.
You better tithe.
You better be at Church every time the door was open. (This one was easy because my Dad was a Pastor.)
So, if you are out there trying to earn your way into relationship with God it is a burden that you need not carry and when you realize this Truth it is actually a relief. Then you can start to actually do and say the things that please God by letting His Spirit live in you.
It can be a rough ride and not a pretty sight, but Jesus did not come and die for us because it was comfortable or pretty. He did it because he understood and still understands that it is HE who brings life from sin and death, and it is Jesus in you that will produce “good works and fruit.”
Your behavior will change because Jesus transforms our hearts and out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, the hands serve, and the love overflows. I know, because I spent years trying to be good enough and failed and then as I lay all of that down I began to change.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6
But he ·gave up his place with God and made himself nothing [L emptied himself]. He ·became like [L took the form of] a ·servant [slave; bondservant] and was born ·as a man [L in the likeness of humanity/men.
Jill Autrey Dorman 