Remember how you were once dead in your sins, but not anymore!

My husband and I both had horrible nightmares last night.  Both about how sexual sins ruin lives.

How the ruler of this world is using sexual temptation to draw people away from the presence God.

It reminded both of us that our own marriage is one built by God’s grace.
That we did nothing but receive the forgiveness of Christ and were shown the light to put Him at the center of our marriage, above our evil desires, which now provides us with a blessed marriage!
Both of us came from a life of sin, rich with evil desires for worldly things, both of us were once under the influence of the darkness that made us disobedient to Christ’s ways, and both of us were dead when Christ saved us!
However, we are both here now, alive and blessed, because of grace not because of anything we did.

The lives of those who are stuck in misery and destruction are no different than where Ben and I came from.

So everyday that we hear God’s voice is a reminder that while we were dead, Jesus plummeted to death to bring us up to new life! Let’s remember the grace we have today for the fact that we even know God!
He saved every one of us from our deadness, and everyday He speaks to our hearts, searches us, to lead us into the new life in Christ!  Thank God for pursuing us each day!

We are blessed because we are the recipients of great grace!

“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler who exercises authority over the lower heavens, the spirit now working in the disobedient. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us, made us alive with the Messiah even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!”
‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭2:1-5‬ ‭

As we have been saved by grace,
we now go on mission to seek and save more by that very same grace!
As we experience the good days and the bad, we now go to God in prayer for how to remain in His plan at all times to find our next steps and turns in the new life we have because of grace!
Our sufferings are no longer in vain because we have a reason to always rejoice in hope, for we were once utterly dead in our sins, but now have a way to life in every situation!

We have this great and mighty grace!
No longer do we turn from deadness to deadness, but we are being shaped and transformed from glory to glory!  Everyday is another day to rejoice that we have been brought up from the dead!
Live aware of Christ’s presence working in you today!
Jmegrey

For us Death is Life

Sometimes in marriage it can feel like you’ve married a stranger.  The person you held and loves feels suddenly distant and impersonal.  Who is this person?  They are themselves, in all their own nature as broken human beings—as all people are, including ourselves.  We, too, become strangers to our spouses and they may feel we are distant and not the person they once knew.  We are changing or we are discovering more about ourselves in living with each other.  All the demons come out, the shadows, the dark secrets, the fears, and worst of all the actions behind it all.  We say words in tones that are hurtful, silences that cause emotional pain, and our hearts grow cold and bitter.  We wish for the other reach out and embrace us, but when it doesn’t happen we grow even more afraid, more cold, and more distant.  We become strangers who can’t find a relationship because of our assumptions and fantasies unmet. How wretched are we if we expect to get what we want to be happy!  Who would be happy then?  For who could provide what one expects all the time?  

But thanks be to Christ who showed us the way.  That happiness is a formula and it is to lay one’s life down for the other.  To die to one’s fears, insecurities, expectations, and fantastical desires.  We die to be happy as Christ showed us in His death and resurrection.  Oh how awful death is!  But how marvelous the resurrection is!  Both are frightfully so beyond our ability to grasp, yet they are the two things before us that move us one way or another.  One toward life is death, the other towards death is life.  

Help me Lord to follow You. 

It feels easier now because I’ve already been so wretched as to kill and destroy my own loved ones by my actions.  But now, Your mercy is giving me at least an opportunity to show my gratitude by loving my husband well when he returns.  Make my heart more soft and melted!  Give me reason! Give me wisdom!  Give me mercy!  

Thank You.  

Jmegrey

Feelings are real, but they are not reliable.