Friday Final Word

Nomad welcomes back Jim Trick, Pastor, Nomad North for this weeks Final Word. “I am just a sinner saved by grace” is one of the biggest lies spoken regularly by modern evangelicals.  It may be the central lie that disables us from loving the way we were made to.  If you have been saved by grace you are not “just” any thing.  It is that kind of thinking that leads us into a perpetual state of trying to earn that which we already have and disables us from being who we actually are.   Saint Paul went out of his way to let us know that we are in fact “more than conquerors”.  The old “I’m just a sinner saved by grace” line is in direct opposition to Paul’s famous admonishment.  I am convinced that if we would work to see ourselves the way God sees us that His perspective would reveal to us a truth so deep and so hidden that we would be freed and empowered to love with the confidence that comes not only from knowing Christ but knowing ourselves as well.    In Matthew 22, Jesus instructs us to love our neighbors as ourselves.  Love of self is apparently central to what Jesus held as most important.  If you want to be effective in shining the kind of love that Nomad is trying to encourage then you need to love what God loves.  You!   Pray with me.  Father in the name of Jesus I ask You to help me to see myself through the lens of your love and grace.  Help me to reject the thoughts and feelings that keep me from receiving all that You have for me and as you pour your love into me make me aware of places to share it with others.  In Christ I pray… Amen