Hello friends! Thanks so much for clicking on this post, woohoo you made it! As most of you know I changed the name of my website a few weeks back to be called Hands + Feet in order to create more of a community here in this space. You can read more about it here! So, in effort to do that I thought, how cool would it be to pick one verse every month that we can all meditate on and lean into together! On the first of each month, I will be posting a verse of the month, so make sure to stay tuned for those! Okay now for the actual article, thanks for bearing with me…
1 Corinthians 15:10
“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me was not in vain.”
Let’s break this down into 3 parts:
Part 1: “But by the grace of God”
So, what is grace? Grace is forgiveness even when we are undeserving of it. Grace is something that is so unique and utterly amazing about God. It shows that our God is kind and has a love so deep for us that He cannot hold any hostility towards us. Grace and God are a package deal. When we choose to follow Him, we choose to walk in the light of grace. A light that says, “It does not matter what you have done or what you will do, you are forgiven.” You see, God doesn’t see our impurities because of Jesus’s sacrifice. When He died, we were deemed white as snow. So even if we feel covered in filth and dirt , God sees snow.
Part 2: “I am what I am”
I think this is the most important part of the verse to grasp. In a nutshell, this is saying God meets us where we are at. So wherever you are, whether on a mountain top or in a valley, God will be there. He doesn’t need you to have it all together and He doesn’t need you to be in the biggest trial of your life to show up. He is always there. And wherever you are, you are okay because God’s grace is covering you. Each day when you wake up, you are who you are and that is just where you need to be. God created you to be exactly who you are. God knows where you are, and He has you there for a reason, so He’s going to be right alongside you NO MATTER WHAT.
Part 3: “and His grace towards me was not in vain.”
“In vain” means to be empty or without purpose. So this portion of the verse is really saying “His grace is not purposeless”. Rather, His grace is abundant and rich, producing in us a clean heart. Grace is not an empty word, it has weight, it means something. You see, grace changes us. It takes the burden of our brokenness and instead produces purity. Grace makes us the people we so desperately want to be. Grace is the reason we don’t have to be separated from God.
Sometimes when I look into the mirror I’m disappointed with who I am. Sometimes I see a face infused with sadness and grief. Sometimes I’m greeted by a pleasant smile. The thing is, we are are people who change all the time. We are sad sometimes and we are happy sometimes. We are in deep valleys or on the highest mountain tops. Or sometimes we are resting in the in between. It’s hard to keep track of.
Meanwhile God is saying, “I don’t care where you are in life right now. I don’t care that you have messed up a thousand times and turned your back away from me. I don’t care that you’ve given into the world’s desires or done things you know you shouldn’t have done. In my eyes, you are pure because my grace is sufficient for you. And you are so loved, and so chosen.”
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