Silly Elizabeth, grace is for free!

This is my first post for the I Am statements. Sorry for the novel, I'm making up for lost time.

I think I just need to start by saying that God is so good. This whole idea of grace has really been on my heart for the past few weeks. You see, I was really confused a few days ago when the idea originally popped into my head. It has been ages since I have actively thought, "Hmm, maybe I am trying to earn grace." When I evaluate my life and still can't see it, somehow God still makes it known to me. Earning grace doesn't necessarily mean I am trying to be a better person or thinking straight up, "I need to do this better so that God will love me more." It comes from a place much deeper than that. It comes from a heart that is not willing to sacrifice. People who try to earn grace do not understand surrender. They (I) might see God exactly for who He is and still try to hold onto things and fix them. I think this especially happens in the midst of doing ministry. We get so caught up in serving the Creator that we forget our purpose for serving in the first place.

Today in class I had a random thought. We always talk about this concept of how salvation requires nothing of us. All we have to do is profess faith and boom, saved. But as I was sitting there, not paying attention to a single thing my teacher was saying, my head started spinning as I thought of how this could possibly be. What happened to James telling us that faith without works is dead? Or Jesus telling us that in order to follow Him we must pick up our cross daily? Those don't seem like free rides to me. Those seem like quite the opposite. As I was sitting there thinking all of these things, my mind suddenly calmed. Frustration at the seeming contradiction eased and I was left in a peace I have only known the Father to bring. It was then that I remembered my life is not my own. In order to recognize that grace is free, we must first realize that our lives are not ours to begin with. So when we find out that following God will cost us our lives, we can also rest in the fact that all we are really doing is relinquishing our position on a stolen throne. The art of surrender reminds us that God has everything under control. His grace is sufficient for all of us. Embrace weakness and live in submission.

(Fun fact, the title of this post was almost my status on facebook over the weekend. I couldn't figure out why God kept leading me to the idea of grace, so I didn't post it. When the idea came up again today, I still didn't understand. Today was my first time participating in even looking at the statements.)