Christian living Archives | Grace on Parade

February 1, 2019 by Karen Wingate 1 Comment

Amazing Grace: 6 Things Grace Can Do For You

Amazing grace! It really is amazing.

The word grace can mean many things in our English language, definitions that can distract us from the core of its content rich meaning. Even to Christ followers, grace has become as common as communion cups. We’ve consigned it the simplistic explanation that it is a gift from God. It’s so much more than that. It’s an undeserved gift. I don’t know about you, but that blows my mind. Why would the God of the Universe want to give someone like me something I don’t deserve?

In order to wrap our brains around that and try to teach children and new Christians about this wondrous thing, we’ve invented simplified acronyms about this Amazing Grace.

Have you heard this one?

God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense

Very true and very concise. It’s what I call a nutshell definition. It’s so well coined that I can rattle it off without stopping to think about what it really means.

Max Lucado says in his book, Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater than We Imagine observes that we’ve come to accept a wimpy kind of grace, Ole’ Max nailed that “greater than we imagine” part. Grace is more than a one-time gift even though that in itself would have been awesome and undeserved. Instead, Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is only the beginning of grace. An important beginning. A crucial beginning. God, in His love for us, chose to make Amazing Grace much more. A gift that keeps on giving. Something that becomes richer, fuller, and more beautiful the further we go in our Christian walk.

Christ’s death and resurrection blasted open the door to a Heaven-sized bundle of blessings that any allegiance to an outward law code could attain. Yes, acceptance of God’s gift of salvation will bring you to eternity with your Lord. But grace has a lot of work to do within you before you reach Heaven’s gates.

Here’s six things that grace can do for you.

Grace frees you.

It frees you from having to live a perfectly perfect life before God allows you to live in His inner circle. It frees you from the penalty of sin and the emotional tangle of its entrapment. As Jesus said, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed (Jn 8:36).”

Grace forgives you.

Are you overloaded with guilt from past sin? Afraid you can’t forget? Afraid others won’t forget. According to Jesus, it’s over. He has removed your sin from you as far as the east is from the west, and that’s an awfully long way. Ephesians 1:7 says, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.” God’s forgiveness greets you every morning. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, day after day.

Grace blesses you.

Jesus could have just died on the cross, rose from the dead, prepared heaven, and called it good. Instead, in his lavish love and mercy for us, He gives us so much every day that, let’s be honest, we do not deserve. Not one bit. We’re sinners, remember? Every one of us. We’ve rejected Him. We’ve tried to take charge of our own lives. Even after agreeing to follow Him, we’re prone to dally in the ditches and get sidetracked by rabbit trails. Our actions blare that we don’t trust God enough to get us through this thing called life. We whine and complain about the silliest of things, things that would rival the Israelites’ complaints in the desert.

Yet, every morning we awake to a new set of grace-gifts. Romans 8:32 says, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”

Those three are easy and what we commonly think of when we hear the word grace. God doesn’t stop there.

Grace transforms you.

You aren’t just forgiven so you can go back and make the same mistakes again. Nor does God leave you to “try harder” but fall on your face in failure. Throughout the rest of your life, God works with you to change you into His likeness. He gives you the resources to make your life better. The best gift of all is a new heart, a clean heart.

Lucado calls this a spiritual heart transplant. I call it WOW! Ezekiel 11:19 says, “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.” Do you know someone whose life radically turned around when they became a Christian? Point proven. That’s what grace does. Grace gives you a brand-new set of motivations. You no longer do what is right, good, and beneficial because you have to. You do it because you want to. God’s grace fuels you to move forward toward right living.

Grace dwells within you.

This is the one that I have a tough time wrapping my brain around. It’s amazing that God blesses me, wants to walk with me, and is crazy in love with me. Beyond that, He chooses to live inside me through His Spirit, to incorporate His spiritual DNA into mine. Some believe this indwelling of the Holy Spirit gives them the power and freedom to worship God at a new level. Forgive me, but that is oh so pea-sized limiting. God’s partnership with us is so much more.

Because grace dwells within me, I don’t have to try to live a God-pleasing life by my own strength. God isn’t just helping me live righteously; He’s living that righteous life through me. Paul said in Galatians 2:20, “Not I but Christ who lives within me.” Lucado says, “God expects us to change then gives us the power to pull it off.”

Why did God choose to do it that way? His glory shines through the sin-cracks of my life in such a way that others see Him in me and desire to draw closer to His grace. Anything I do for Him and because of Him is through Him, not through my own limited effort. How do we live by grace and not by merit? Ah ha! Here it is. We live by grace because grace lives inside us.

Grace empowers you.

We’re given a power that transforms our lives to represent His righteousness. We’re also empowered through grace-gifts unique to each believer that enables us to reach God-sized dreams.

God calls us to do an impossible task. He asks us to tell the gospel message to all nations using gifts He will give us. No one is packaged quite like you. You have a highly specialized task that only you can do and you’ve been given a designer toolbox with your name on it. Check out Romans 12:6-8. Don’t stress too much on which of twelve or fourteen spiritual gifts is yours. The point of these verse is that you use what God has given you in the best way you can for His glory.

When you give in to God’s gift for you, the best parade in all the world will march right down the street of your life blaring God’s grace and glory to anyone who is watching and listening. Won’t that be amazing?

How has God’s grace benefited you today? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

July 19, 2018 by Karen Wingate Leave a Comment

Jesus: The Best Bargain of All

I love a bargain. Doesn’t everyone?

As part of the Bon Ton liquidation, our local Bergner’s and Younkers stores announced store-wide going out of business clearance prices. I’m a shop-the-sales-only kind of girl so I didn’t twitch at the beginning. Forgive my bargain mania but a 20% sale isn’t much of a sale. My husband and I decided to bite when the store announced sales were now at 50-70%. Off we went to find a bargain or three.

We were in the market for a new comforter and set of bedsheets. Among the dwindling stock, we found a beautiful comforter both of us liked. While I unpackaged our new purchase and spread it over the bed, my husband disappeared into his man cave to google the brand name of the comforter only to find we didn’t get that much of a bargain. We paid the same amount the we could have on Amazon, reinforcing his belief that Bergner’s always did charge too much for retail. “They’re still making a bundle of money,” he quipped.

What makes us work so hard to catch a bargain?

[Read more…]

June 4, 2018 by Karen Wingate Leave a Comment

Serving Jesus: It’s What We Do

“What are you doing?”

The co-director and head cook of our local Christian service camp facility and retreat center recently spoke to the Women’s Fellowship group at my local church. Jamie grew up in the Roseville church and made us smile with her memories of Children’s Church, our “SuperGang” midweek Bible club, and early memories of church camp. She told the story of one volunteer who wouldn’t greet campers with the expected, “How are you?” Instead, he asked, “What are you doing?”

This was in the day when campers helped set tables, wash dishes, and clean latrines. The kids might be hanging out at the flagpole, drying a dish, or scrubbing a table. Wasn’t it obvious to this clueless adult? Confusion grew when he wouldn’t accept their obvious answer. Instead, he shook his head and retorted, “No. You’re serving Jesus.”

That left an indelible impression on Jamie. She told how those words followed her into adulthood. Now, whenever she is cooking, preparing the facilities for the next round of campers, or paying the water bill, she’s encouraged by those words. She isn’t doing some thankless, small, nobody cares kind of task. She’s serving Jesus. Jamie expressed that now it is such a thrill to give back to the campers the gifts she had so taken for granted when she herself was a camper.

Serving Jesus in Europe

Her story reminded me about my own encounter with serving Jesus. I spent two weeks at a Bible training center near Vienna, Austria. The mission organization found it was cheaper to ask American volunteers to come to Europe on their own nickel and act as housekeepers and cooks instead of hiring local people to do the job. We got a taste of the organization’s efforts to train Eastern European and central Asian church leaders, the students saw what they thought were proud Americans taking on the biblical role of servants, and we took back exciting stories of God’s work to our home churches. What a win-win.

Sunny, the head cook, told us this early on. “You aren’t scrubbing potatoes. You aren’t wiping counters. By cooking and cleaning, you are freeing up young men and women to devote themselves full time to the study of God’s Word. You are serving Jesus.”

Now, I think there is no food more gross than a jar of slimy pimentos. One day, Sunny asked me to slice pimentos for the hot sandwiches we were preparing for lunch. My inner voice formulated what I wanted to tell her. Sunny, I’ve done everything you’ve asked me to do. I will stay in the dish room the rest of the week. Just don’t make me slice pimentos!

Then I remembered: You aren’t slicing pimentos. You aren’t making sandwiches. You are serving Jesus.

What about you?

What is God calling you to do this week?

Care for an elderly parent?
Babysit your grandkids?
Clean your house for company?
Watch your teenager play softball on an extra hot afternoon?
Show extra kindness to a beleaguered store clerk?
Teach the preschool class at your local church?
Weed the worship center’s outside flower bed?
Mow a neighbor’s yard?

Are you dragging your feet? Does it seem unimportant? Does no one seem to care or appreciate your hard work?

Remember this: In whatever you do, you are serving Jesus.

And He is smiling.

April 27, 2018 by Karen Wingate 6 Comments

No Sea In Heaven: 3 Reasons Why That’s Important

Psalm 93:4 - God is mightier than any ocean — God is mightier than any ocean.

There will be no Sea in Heaven.

That’s what Revelation 21:1 says. Does that surprise you?

When I finished guiding a ladies’ Bible study through the book of Revelation, I wiped my forehead and said, “Whew! We made it!” Teaching Revelation was the most challenging – and rewarding – study I’ve ever conducted. Like many Christians leaders, I’ve been afraid of the book, afraid to get involved in the controversies.

I’m glad we studied Revelation.

I’ve learned so much about worship, God’s intentions for His followers, and God’s response to the evil that is strangling our culture. So many little details surprised me, enough that I needed to ask over and over again, “Why is that so?” One was the comment in Revelation 21 that there will be no sea in the new Heaven.

But the sea is a nice place. Warm beaches, surf boards, crashing waves, and boating. What could be more picturesque and pleasant than watching the waves?

A picture is worth a thousand words and the Apostle John used powerful imagery to prove his points about God’s plan for the ages. The images attempt to describe the indescribable and suggest greater truths. This is especially true in John’s expression that there will be no more sea.

Our Bible study group discovered three reasons why John mentions that there will be no sea in Heaven.

No more fear

According to Matt Proctor, in his book Victorious (College Press, 2013), to a first century Greek, the sea was a place of chaos and evil. Put yourself in some Greek sandals. To your way of thinking, the sea would be uncrossable. Loved ones died in shipwrecks. Enemies arrived in foreign looking vessels. No sonar systems plunged the depths and analyzed strange creatures that lived below the surface. The sea was a place of fear and dread.

No sea means no fear. No more danger, death, or destruction. No more enemies or uncertainty. Wow. Can you imagine life without fear or cause to fear?

No more separation

A good Bible study method is to compare one verse with other verses. Earlier in Revelation, John says there was a sea before the throne of God:

“Also in front of the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal.” – Revelation 4:6

This scene is in the present Heaven, the one that exists right now. The New Heaven in Revelation 21 will be established at the very end of time after Jesus eradicates all evil from the earth and brings His bride, the Church, to live with Him forever.

The only ones with complete access to God’s throne in Revelation 4 are the twenty-four elders, the four living creatures, and the angels. But in Revelation 21, the barrier of the sea no longer exists.

Catch that! We’ll no longer stand at a distance, separated by time and space from the throne of God. While He invites us to draw closer now with confidence (Hebrews 4:16), we’ll have full access to His throne. Isn’t that wonderful?

No more segregation

Over the centuries, what has kept people groups from each other? The ocean. Even with all our modern technology, the sea still separates super-powers. China, Russia, and Australia might as well be in another world. They don’t seem real to us because it takes so long to get there.

At the end of the ages, the sea will no longer separate people groups.

He will raise a banner for the nations
and gather the exiles of Israel;
he will assemble the scattered people of Judah
from the four quarters of the earth. – Isaiah 11:12

That verse refers to both the return of the exiles after the Babylonian captivity and the gathering of God’s people, the Church, at the end of time. Nations will never again be at odds. We won’t be Americans, British, Russian, or Saudi Arabian. Those who follow Christ will belong to God’s Kingdom. We will stand together shoulder to shoulder with people from every nation and every era with no barriers of difference between us.

In the meantime, Eternity starts now. God is with you in this moment. He reigns supreme. He is mightier than anything that threatens to destroy your life and livelihood, separate you from His love, or segregate you from anyone also made in His image. He is more powerful than the mightiest of seas.

He truly has prepared a special place for us (John 14:2,3). It’s more special than anything than we can imagine. It’s little catch phrases like “no sea” that give me a glimpse of Heaven’s reality and convince me all the more – I want to go there.

Check out these resources for more on Heaven’s reality:

The ministry of Don Piper:

Eternal Perspectives: The ministry of Randy Alcorn:

Victorious by Matt Proctor

90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper:

Heaven by Randy Alcorn: