Loved and Forgiven
I once heard a preacher say that we should all have a list of “I Am” statements that we read through every day reminding us who we are. I've started to do this. It's an important part of my day - reminding myself who I am in Christ. So I thought maybe I'd share this with you and you can come up with your own list and go through it every day.
Knowing Yourself Loved
The first thing I've got on my list is this: “I Am Loved and Forgiven”. And then straight after it, I've got a little explanation sentence that says “He has saved me my grace.”
This is who I am. A child of the most-high God. You see, I often fall prey to self-doubt, knocking myself down, being too hard on myself. Measuring my performance and trying to see if I've done well enough for God to love me. And I need to remember every day that God loves me. Not because of what I've done, but just because He has saved me by his grace.
Listen to Paul's words in Ephesians 2:8 - “It is by grace You have been saved through faith and this is not from yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast.” It's important for me to remind myself it's not what I bring to the table that has made God love me. He has loved me because I am his child, and putting my faith in him, I am able to receive that love and that grace.
Love is a Gift From God
This is who I am! I am loved and forgiven, saved by God's grace. And that is the core of it all. All the other things we'll share this week come out of that. If I don't have that in place, if I'm not saved by grace and loved and forgiven, then I'm nowhere with God.
How about you, my friend? Are you saved by grace? Have you given your life to Jesus and accepted the love that He has for you? He went so far to show his love for you. Surrender to him, friends. And every morning remind yourself “I am loved and forgiven by God” because my faith is in Christ Jesus only what He did that enabled me to be forgiven. And so I stand in that forgiveness today and every day.
