Accept God's Grace

Photo by Lina Trochez on Unsplash

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved.     -Romans 10:9-10

I remember how freeing it was to finally accept God’s forgiveness.  It was one sin from my past that kept tripping me up.  I just couldn’t forgive myself and thought for sure I would carry it with me forever.  I knew what the Bible said about forgiveness.  I understood that I just had to confess to God and He would forgive me.  But every time I thought I was over the shame and guilt it would find its way back into my thoughts.  Until one day.  One day I was sitting outside on a beautiful night, in the courtyard of my church, with my GFF’s and something just clicked.  That was the moment I never looked back again.  That was the moment I believed, all the way down in my heart, that I was made right with God through His undeserved grace.  I had been saved!  I finally saw God’s forgiveness in a new light.  I took what I knew in my mind on a journey to my heart where it was able to finally rest.  This day my life changed forever.  This was the day I chose to accept Jesus.  It was nothing I did but everything Jesus did for me.  I could let my past go.  

I grew up in a christian home and attended church and religious classes on regular basis.  The information was all in my head.  I knew about Jesus dying for my sins to give me salvation.  I just never carried what I knew all the way to my heart.  I never really accepted the promises or allowed myself to truly live in it.  As I read Romans 10:9-10 I was blown away realizing that until I could accept God’s grace I wasn’t truly believing in Him.  Because trusting means believing in the reliability, truth, or strength and ability of someone or something, it is accepting that God can take away my sins through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, no questions asked.  Real faith was accepting God’s grace.  And that is all it takes!