River of Grace

HELLO,
 
We have floated some of our smaller rivers in southern Indiana with a John Boat, fishing for bass.  We are not able to go far until we run into log jams, which are an unpleasant sight.  Logs backed up behind one another, and piled on top of one another.  As a float fisherman it's something you always dread to see. 
 
This reminds me of the scene we observe too often in the Church.  We Christian travelers accept God's grace for salvation, but too many of us seem to believe it stops there.  This results in a real congestion, with people just backing up behind each other.  It's not just new converts that fail to move on, but too many of us that have been Christians for some years just have very little, if any,  movement in our Christian walk.  We are basically where we started.
 
As we look deeper into God's grace, let's praise Him for His saving grace, but also for growing in His grace from day to day, freeing us from that log jam of congestion.  He not only wants, but He expects, movement from us in our Christian life.  The scriptures says:  "From Grace to Grace."
 
Grace literally means that which we do not have to earn. It has two great senses always; it comes without charge, and it comes when we are helpless. Grace does not merely help the man who helps himself-that is not the gospel. The gospel is that God helps the man who cannot help himself. In addition, God helps the man to help himself, for everything the man does comes from God. Grace is given to the man who is so weak and helpless he cannot take the first step.  His grace can also help us take that next step and the next. That is the meaning of grace-at least a little of its meaning. We can never know the fullness of it.

This river of grace is as free as it is full, but some people, surprisingly, have the idea that when they get a little farther on they must pay an admission, or pay to reserve a seat, and they shrink back from the higher blessings of the gospel. Ordinary Christians scarcely dare to claim them. That's where the congestion starts, the "log jam", if you will.  If I understand the meaning of the gospel, God has not put the higher blessings apart for a separate class who somehow are nearer to Him. God is no respecter of persons. 
 
My heart yearns for ever person in our church to grow in God's grace.  If after an honest assessment of your present Christian life, you feel you are standing still, in a "log jam", God's river of grace can move you.  For me, it seems the simplest next move for many of us is to join a small group, where we can learn to grow with others and move on from there to help others in need.  The Lord never wants us to stand still, to be congested in a "log jam". 
 
The enemy would want to freeze us where we are, through fear of a small group setting, or by busying us so, we could justify no movement in the area of our Christian life.  But God's grace is greater, and remember His grace can help move that person that feels he cannot move himself. 

Scripture
 

"Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh—"Galatians 3:3


God bless you and yours, be bless this Saturday morning, see you in church tomorrow, and remember that you are loved!!!

 
Henry