I had a dream last night about how often we settle for forgiveness rather than freedom, the comfort of grace rather than the true grace of God leading us to the joy of the Conqueror.

Have you settled for a circle of forgiveness and defeat? Remember that in Christ you have been given the authority and the power to live as a child of God. Don’t stop with forgiveness, though forgiveness alone  would be reason to praise God for all eternity. Pursue freedom.  In Christ you really can get past the wave that so continually seems to have washed you back to the shore in despair and seems to have mocked your desire to get beyond it to swim in the freedom of God. Don’t listen to the mockery one day longer. Ge hold of this truth: your sinful nature has been crucified with Christ.  Declare that truth over familiar temptation anytime it seems to mock you with a sense of its invincibility and of  inevitability of sin.

 ^“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior,^[b] Jesus Christ. He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds (Titus 2. 11 – 14, NRSV).”

Let the grace of God in Jesus be your personal trainer!

God bless you with hope.

Kenny