The Extra Degree: Living With Grace

Being different for some people is easy. Easy may not equal positive. Maybe you are not in the "in crowd" and that causes you to be different. Maybe you would be considered a member of the "in crowd" and that is what makes you different. For whatever reason that you are different, you are exactly that, different.

Technically speaking, we are all different. Something about us makes us different than others.

I hope we can learn to be different because of something positive. Spiritually speaking, I hope you can be different by being "yourself" but the yourself is still real with people and able to show them that you are "living with grace."

Sunday we talked about that last phrase. Some may have health issues and must learn to live with it, despite the lifestyle changes. As we learn to live with grace, there are going to be some lifestyle changes we must make. Here are some applications to choose from to use this week...

• Take of the Offer ~ Grace is offered to you. Grace that comes through Jesus. Are you willing to take of the offer? If not, why not? Don't need it? Don't deserve it? If that isn't your reason and you do take of the offer, are you willing to make the extra degree lifestyle change to be the hands and feet of Jesus on this earth.
• Reject It ~ Once we take of the offer (above) our old life will have a tendency to want to creep back in. Our body was made a certain way and we like the way it has been made. To be given a new organ, our body will have a tendency to reject it. In the way of a transplant, we will have to take anti-rejection drugs; with a spiritual transplant, we will do the same. In this case, we were comfortable with ungodliness and worldly passions. To rid ourselves of those and replace it with a transplanted life, our spiritual life will reject the new life. May we take the continual dosage of grace to show what our new life entails.
• Live Now ~ Sometimes a deadline simply means that one can put things off until they reach that critical point in which they cannot wait any longer. That behavior is usually defined as procrastination. I think there are a lot of Christians who are figuratively procrastinating to use their gifts/talents until a day they are "ready" or think they are ready. The peculiar thing is that we are created ready. We all have our talents and we must use those talents to share our faith with them. The time is now to use our gifts and to share the joy that we have through the grace that's been handed to us through the Son...live now!

Changes to one's lifestyle after having to live with a condition are generally not easy. So to change our lifestyle as we live with grace may not be that easy for you. But to cause yourself to live longer, we must make those changes. Speaking from the spiritual point of view, to "live longer" we must also make some lifestyle changes. "Just say 'No'" is for more than drugs and alcohol. It also applies how we live with grace and let the previous life know it is not going to rule over us.