Dear First Pres,
This past Sunday I held a swimming kickboard above my head. When I asked you if you knew what it was, some of you thought it was a tombstone. Others thought it was a stone tablet for the 10 commandments. I’m sorry for the confusion. It is an old kickboard. Nevertheless, I held it up to give an illustration. Back when I was on the swim team, we’d take our kickboards, jump into the diving pool where the water was deep, hold those boards above our heads and start kicking. It was brutal.
The point is this: all of us have a tendency to live like that. If you think of that kickboard as the grace of God, we so often think we have to earn it. So we hold it up and we kick, kick, gasp and kick some more. It’s exhausting and depressing. It’s unsustainable and deadly. Even the very best of us can’t earn the grace of God. None of us can be more deserving of God’s goodness and mercy than any other person.
The best part of that drill was when we got to rest. Suddenly that kickboard, that had been the bane of our existence, was our very best friend. If we took it and held it close it would hold us up. We could rest by simply holding the kickboard close.
The same is true with the grace of God in Christ. Hebrews 4:14b says, “Let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.” The “faith we profess” can also be translated as “confession.” What is our confession? What is the faith we profess? Ephesians 2:4-5 says it this way: “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.”
What is one specific way that you can rest in the grace of God today?
I pray today that you understand more than yesterday what it means to rest in the grace of God the Father given to us in Christ and activated by the Spirit.
Blessings,
Pastor Jeremy
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