I’m taking a little liberty here since it is late on Saturday and I wanted to get this post up.  Why?  Because I feel a connection with the few of you reading my blog.  I feel the Lord always has a message for us when we are ready to listen!  The following is from the book of 2Corinthians, chapter 4, verses 13-18.  Today’s specified readings go from 7-15 but I read the whole chapter and my mind stuck on these two paragraphs for a few moments longer – so I’m going with it.

¹³ Since we have the same spirit of faith as he had who wrote, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we too believe, and so we speak, ¹⁴ knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.   ¹⁵Everything indeed is for you, so that grace bestowed in abundance on more and more people may cause the thanksgiving to overflow for the glory of God.

¹⁶ So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day. ¹⁷ For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, ¹⁸ because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

I’ve heard it said, you are the people you surround yourself with. Can you say, we believe, we speak, we know who our Savior is?  And to take it more personally, I ask myself, how have I come to share in his love?  By HIS GRACE.  HIS GRACE.  HIS GRACE!  Not by my grace but his.  My gratitude for his grace is multiplied and cause the thanksgiving to overflow for the glory of God.  Pondering these two paragraphs of scripture over and over, I’m just so choked up with the love of the Father for me.  He gives such great gifts.

I cannot lose heart because every day I get older and feel I am running out of time.  The fact is, I am going to die one of these days!  But until he calls me home, every day I turn to my Lord and my God in prayer, gratitude, humility and thanksgiving.  And when I turn to him, he renews me, every day.  Can I see it in the mirror?  Uh, no.  I see more wrinkles and bags under my eyes.  But if I could see my soul, I know it would look like a newborn baby.

Grace is such a little word yet a giant in meaning.  He will raise us up one day.  Will he find a withered old soul in my body or a renewed newborn full of love and joy?  Things that are unseen are eternal.  By his grace I’m counting on having that renewed baby – unseen in this aging body of mine but taking up my whole soul; I’m counting on it to just jump right up and into Jesus’ arms.  How about you? By God’s grace, invite him to love and dwell in you.  You have until your very last breath.  By why wait?