Hello, friends! Wanted to send a devotional since
it's been a while. This message deals with a verse
from Psalm 130, which I wrote a song based on it.
Actually, it's posted on my web site, so you can
listen to it if you'd like. It's called "More Than
Watchmen", and here's the link to my site:
http://www.brennakate.com/cd.html or if you click on
this
(http://babel.massart.edu/~simroy/Morethanwatchmen.mp3),
it will play the mp3 directly.

In any event, I pray this is a blessing to you all! (
didn't write this one, but I don't know where I got
it!)

Love & Prayers, Brenna Kate

Clean Slate

"If You, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who
could stand?" Psalm 130:3

There's a Christian chorus I like that quotes the
verse above. That chorus opens by stating a truth
that's very simple, and yet deeply profound. It
says, "Only by grace can we enter. Only by grace can
we stand."

We Christians who preach the gospel have no trouble
remembering that it is only by grace that the lost can
be saved and enter into the presence of the Lord; but
sometimes, in practice, we forget that it is also only
by grace that our salvation is maintained -- only by
grace can we stand.

Since we forget that simple fact, we live lives more
complicated by striving and human effort and stress
than the Christian walk was ever intended to be.
And when we fall, which is the inevitable result of
trying to live holy lives in our own strength, we beat
ourselves up emotionally, telling ourselves, "You
failed once again. Another spiritual blunder.
Another
stumble. Another time of falling short of what God
requires of you." Instead of celebrating the grace of
our forgiving Lord, we wallow in despair in these
moments, spiritually crippled by feelings of guilt.

Let it not be so in your life, my sister. Human
effort will not create holy character and actions in
the saved any more effectively than it does in the
lost. The same grace that was essential to your
salvation is equally essential to your success in the
Christian life. Only by grace can you stand. In your
own strength, you will, like Peter on the night of the
crucifixion, fall.

The good news is that when those falls have occurred
it is not God's desire that you punish yourself for
your sin. Your sins past, present, and future have
already been punished once on the cross. They need
not be punished twice. God's perfect justice has
already been done, and now by His loving grace you can
stand in faith.

He is not keeping a record of your wrongs, if you know
Him. Were it not so, we would all be without hope,
because sinless beings we shall all not be until we
shed these carnal bodies for the glorified ones that
we will receive in heaven, then clothed in the
spotless garments of the redeemed.


Our Savior is not tallying up our sins to mark them
and remember them. Instead, His mercies "are new
every morning." Think about that. What wondrous
grace! Every morning you can have a clean slate, a
perfect record before a holy God, because the blood of
Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.

So, each day, instead of wallowing in the failures,
sins, and shortcomings of the one before, acknowledge
the infinite grace of God. Simply confess your sins
and receive his faithful and just forgiveness of them,
and the cleansing from all unrighteousness that
accompanies that forgiveness. When you fall, let Him
stand you up again. Return to close fellowship with
Him, determined that not by your own strength, but by
His alone, by faith you will stand.


"Only by grace can we enter
Only by grace can we stand
Not by our human endeavor
But by the blood of the Lamb
Into Your presence You call us
You call us to come
Into Your presence You draw us
And now by Your grace we come
'Lord, if you marked our transgressions, who could
stand?'
Thanks to Your grace we are cleansed by the blood of
the Lamb"


=====
"The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their
troubles. The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are
crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:17-18

www.brennakate.com
www.livejournal.com/~brennakate

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