The Beauty of Grace - Krystal Meyers

"But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me.  That is why for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong"
-2 Corinthians 12:9-10

"To 'grow in grace' means to utilize more and more grace to live by, until everything we do is assisted by grace.  The greatest saints are not those who need less grace but those who consume the most grace, who indeed are the most in need of grace- those who are saturated by grace in every dimension of their being.  Grace to them is like breath."
-Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart

Part of my journey has been dealing with the sins and betrayals of others.  The pain others' have caused me and my family.  But the more I begin to heal that part of my life, the more I realize the sins and betrayals of my own life.  The pain I caused God.  I am reading a book, a big surprise, and it talks of "surface sins"- those sins that can be videotaped and recorded.  For example, gossip or lying can be surface sins because we can minimize those sins and most of the time they are rooted in a lack of love.

I have surface sins.  There have been times that I haven't been a loyal friend or times when I have let my flesh lead my decisions or times I have taken control of my life thinking I knew better than God.  But I also have much greater sins.  I haven't gotten that far in my book, so I don't know what the book calls the "really big sins."  These are the things you would never want the world to know about you.  Trust me, I am not going to use this blog as a confessional.  However I am going to tell you that God is dealing with me in a very personal way at revealing times when I have betrayed him, my family and those closest to me.  He is showing me that after repentance, and truly turning away from those sins, the Holy Spirit moves in and cleanses me.

That is why I have chosen this song.  When I feel the regret and sadness of those dark places, I listen to these words and remind myself that I am not that person anymore.  The Beauty of Grace is that Jesus took care of it... the surface sins as well as the deepest sins in my heart.

But anywhere you are

is never too far away

There's freedom from your scars

The mistakes that you've made

FORGIVEN

The memories erased

That's the Beauty of Grace