I am so blessed. The Lord has been so good to me. I find myself whispering the words of Paul in Romans 11:33, "Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!" Every time I think I have a handle on who the Lord is; he blows me away some more. Every time I feel like I have sinned too much and the Lord hates me and despises me He proves his word true to me. I truly love the words in Romans 5:20 "Where sin abounds grace abounds much more." What that verse means is that no matter how much I sin; there will always be enough grace to cover my sin.
I find it interesting as people have come up to me and said, "Bill, you can't teach that! If you teach that then people will start sinning all the time!" I simply reply, "That isn’t true. Grace is not a license TO sin; it's a license FROM sin." I have been freed and if I blow it or choose to rebel (Which we all have at times) grace covers me and I am free to walk with the Lord. And because of grace all I can do is drop my mouth and say thank you Lord for loving me enough to give me grace when I do not deserve it at all. I am a wretch and I know it; I am the chief of sinners yet the Lord looks past that and loves me. And that blows me away. I am again humbled at the mercy of the Master and I have nothing to say in response to his unfailing devotion to me except, "Thank you".
What else can I truly say to this? The Lord is so incredibly wonderful and I am amazed and grateful in the core of my soul. This journey that I have been on for the last 14 years has been intense. When I surrendered my heart to the One who loves me 14 years ago, I had no idea what would be in store. It has been an incredible ride. It has been easy at times, but difficult most of the time. I have had good times and have been through the toughest times ever. What a journey. And in the end as the dust settles; every time I have had a struggle the Lord has always been there. He has held me and has loved me enough to place me into difficult circumstances. He has been caring enough to get me through the hard times. He has taken the coal in my live and has at times put me under a lot of pressure. And when coal is under extreme pressure for long periods of time; what happens is that the coal begins to change. It turns into diamonds. And I look at all the things that I have been through as extremely difficult heart wrenching pressure; yet the Lord loved me enough to not only allow these things in my life to happen; but I believe he placed me in these places of difficulty because he saw the coal and what the coal could be. The Lord is looking at the big picture and wants to create a diamond out of my broken life. My job is to simply stay put and allow the pressures and the difficulties of my life to do its work. If I move out from under the pressure then I lose out on what the Lord is doing. And I have tried to move out from under the pressure as it is unbearable at times. But by God’s amazing grace; I can only pray that as He has opened my eyes to what he is doing; I pray that I would stay put. I want to stay where this pain torments me knowing that the Lord is producing something so much better than what I temporarily feel.
I really believe that the Lord is taking my soul of coal and is actually creating the rubies and diamonds for my crown that he will give to me on that day that I meet him face to face. I believe that the crown that the Lord will give to us will be the work that He did in our lives and that is why these crowns will mean so much to us and to Him.
What else is this life but to know you my Lord; to live that you might be glorified! I want to be poured out before you as an offering, because I know for you to live I must die. So I will lay down my life because I long to know you and I will cast down my crown at your feet. And I will do what you say because I live to glorify you, be magnified in me.
I will end today’s post with this. We as Gods children are called to die. We are called to die to our desires as we surrender to Him. How do we die? It’s called obedience. Obedience is an interesting word. It has nine letters and if you break it up into three letters each you have obe-DIE-nce. Notice that the middle three letters in obedience is die. We need to simply choose to die and let the Lord live in us. That is what Paul did. He said in Philippians 1:21, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” He let the Lord live in him because he knew the Lord was devoted to him. I want to be like that. I want to live out the rest of my life on this planet in such a way that I die constantly to the Lords will and allow him to live out his life in me. So again, thank you Lord for loving me. I am yet again humbled by your grace.
