Yep, thats right... this is my first ever entry on something like this. I've never been into the whole facebook, xanga thing, but when Nathan told me about his little creation I caved into the madness. Your'e welcome Nathan. :)
Sooo... I had a great fourth of July. I had to work during the day, but when I got off I drove to Cookeville to hang out with my friends there and we had a really good time. We got to watch the fireworks and I got to have some good, much needed fellowship with a few of my friends. I miss them so much and they encourage me daily with thier lives and thier hearts to pursue God passionately and obediently. I left this morning and came back to the 'boro and had the WHOLE day off. I was SSSOOO excited!!!!!!!! So many plans for the day!!!! I washed some clothes, drew some pictures of some paintings I want to do, took some pictures of hay bails, and went to Books A Million and spent a couple of hours with God. It was GREAT!
I enjoyed my time at BAM just getting in the Word. So many things God has been teaching me this summer about Grace and HIS UNCONDITIONAL, EVERLASTING LOVE. I am daily grasping the Truth that God loves me unconditonally which means based on no conditions, no laws, no rules, or quota that I have to meet. God just loves me because that is who He is. His love never changes because He doesn't change (Malachi 3:6, "I the Lord, do not change...") and also with that, God is love (1Jn 4:8) meaning that love just isn't an attribute of God, but it is who He is. Just like my name is Monica, I'm not sometimes Monica when I feel like it or it benefits me, but I am Monica-hopefully, maybe that will make sense...- God is love all the time, just the same as He is Holy, Faithful and many, gazillon other things.
Anyway, so God loves me w/o condition and always, therefore there is grace which means getting something I don't deserve- eternal life, peace, purpose, joy, etc. through Christ, His Son. I think the main verse that has helped me understand that is Romans 5:8, "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for the ungodly." When have done nothing to gain or deserve God's love, He gave us His Son anyway... Love and grace incomprehensiable. Also Romans 5:1-2 has helped me see the grace that I STAND in because of my faith in Christ. I read this one day when I was struggling to believe that God loved me inspite of my struggles and God showed me that I was standing in Grace because of Christ therefore I needed to walk in Grace and claim the Truth about God's love, forgiveness, and grace in my life and move on. Another verse that helped make that evident was 1 Jn 3:1, which talks about how we have been lavished with the love of God and that we are children of God. A friend of mine once talked about this verse and described what it meant to be lavished in somthing. We are lavished with God's love which means that we are COVERED BEYOND capacity with His love and NOTHING we can do or not do will make it go away. Once we have excepted Christ as Lord and Savior of our life we are FREE to accept his love and grace and everything else He is in our lives. This is long, I know, but maybe it could be encouraging.