Christina, is Covered in Grace

I've been reading, studying, listening, thinking alot about Grace lately.

At Mercy, we all created "tags" to go behind our names........ so, for example:  Kathy, is Completely Beautiful.
The purpose was for you to say the "tag" when someone said your name to renew your mind, or speak out the truth to yourself about who you are.
  Some of the girls' picked "is free", "is remembered", "is worthy of Love".

I can't really remember how my "Tag" came about, But I know that God whispered it to me.  I know that this is a revelation that I was born to have.

Christina, is Covered in Grace.

Not just dabbed in it, not sprinkled, not even egg washed in it.

Covered.

I was sitting..... just letting my imagination play a movie in my head....... I was watching this scene... (a silly picture) of me,  dripping from head to toe in this sticky honey-like substance called Grace.  Its so thick that I can't even open my eyes fully.  Every part of me is saturated with this sweetness.   The first thing you notice (in this picture ) is this girl, covered in this sticky stuff. I'm slipping and sliding in goo, laughing uncontrollably because I can't stand up. It's heavy and substantial, but at the same time buoyant, and light.  There are people looking at me strangely saying  "Is there still a girl under that blob?"......  "I think its Christina?"  "Look, she's getting that stuff on everything she touches, and it's dripping in puddles around her feet everywhere she walks!"
"Quick, keep walking, she's coming over here and if she touches us... it'll get all over us!"
"Where did that stuff come from?"

Covered

And all I know, is that it has to come from God because Grace is not anything that Christina could ever possess on her own in a million years!

In fact, it seems like everything about me is bent toward performance, measuring, rules, laws, striving, perfection, improvement............... Actually, an even more simple and accurate way to put it is:

Everything about me is bent toward Me!

Joyce Meyer has a series called "I was always on my mind" (she even sings the You were always on my mind song to go with it... makes me laugh)

Its not even like I try to always think about me.. In, all honesty, it would be true to say that most of my mental energy is spent thinking about what I did wrong, not quite good enough, what I need to work on, where I need help, what I should do, what I'm doing great at.  If I hang out with a friend, I will always spend time after measuring how good of a friend I was.  "I wonder if what I said hurt her?  I wonder if she could have miss understood this?  I wonder if she had fun?  Did I have fun?  She's having a hard time with this _____ ...... what can I do to help?  Or, did I do anything to cause _____ ??" .............. Exhausting!! Utterly Exhausting!!

Covered in Grace

Covered in Jesus.  He is, in essence who Grace is.  He covers me.  
When I fall short, when I do it "right", but fear I can't keep it up or won't do it right next time....... Jesus!

I feel like I am learning so much about this, but its rolling around in my head, and I haven't quite made it mine yet.
Grace seems so foreign to the way that I have always thought... about myself, about God, and about others.

Some statements and Truths that are Consuming my thoughts.

I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.....  When I choose badly, deliberately sin, am prideful, hurt someone, ignore my need for God and try to do things alone........ God sees me as completely and wholly Right before Him.  He sees me like He sees His perfect son Jesus! ................. Wow!!

As Jesus is, So am I in this world......... I am In Christ.  Its not me anymore.  I am fully in Christ.  I died, and its no longer I that live, but Christ who lives in me.

The Law is what I can do (demand on me).  Grace is who God is and What He can do (supply from Him) ........... I will Always always fall short when trying to do things right and good enough.  I was not created to.  I was created to live in God.  I was created to be a recipient of His Goodness and Love.  A vessel of His Goodness and Love.
 Its not about me!  It's not about me!  It's not about me!  Its not about me!!!!   
It's about.... It's ALWAYS been about How Good God is!!


Covered In His Grace 

Galatians 2:20(MSG)..... (My own thoughts interjected)

 What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God,(Oh how I've tried!!) and it didn't work. (I only felt condemned and never good enough, frustrated, hopeless and exhausted) So I quit being a "law woman" so that I could be God's woman. Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him.(Grace,pure Love, the GIFT of Jesus dying on the cross and making me the righteousness of God!!) Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central.(It's not about Me anymore.  What I can (which isn't much) or cannot do) It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God.(Huge weight off.... He Loves me!  He just Loves me!  He's sees me like He sees Jesus!!!) Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.

   Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.

How can I not fall so madly in Love with such a Good God? 
How could I have not seen this before!  How could my view of God have been so clouded?

He is just Good.  He is so Loving! Everything about Him is good and generous.  Jesus took my sin.  He Covered me with Himself.

I want to know more!  I want my eyes to be opened even more!  

I am so Hungry to know God more, to know His heart, His Love.  I'm so ardent to understand what He did on the cross, His Grace, His ways that are so very different than anything I've ever known.

I'm so thirsty to finally receive His Love and Goodness.... instead of trying to earn it.

I have so much to learn!  I feel like my eyes have been opened to something so vast, so enormous and mammoth, its overwhelming!

Covered in Grace

Unrecognizably covered!

xoxo

cov·er