TRANSFORMING GRATITUDE: GIFTS OF GRACE

How do we build gratitude within our lives?  It seems like it would be an easy question, but life is acidic to the growth of gratitude.  All we have to do is look around and see the condition of the world, and at times, even the condition of our hearts. We have to be intentional about building thanksgiving into our lives. We want you to experience a deep and life-changing gratitude as you approach Thanksgiving Day!  This is the goal of our series, Transforming Gratitude.  We want to nurture your soul so that it will find a strength of gratefulness which can allow the roots of praise to grow into a towering tree of joy.  Our sermon this week is Gifts of Grace, and it is based upon Romans 5:1-11.  At this point in Romans, the Apostle Paul is helping these early believers and all of us to understand the power of God’s grace.  It is a pure gift to us.  We cannot earn it, nor do we deserve it.  How do we know the power of this grace is for us?  Because God demonstrated his absolute love for us through Jesus Christ!  The struggle for all of us is receiving this grace.  We either take it for granted, and nothing changes in our hearts and lives.  Or we secretly think we really have to earn it because nothing is truly unconditional.  As you read these words, notice the words peace, joy, and love.  Each one is a gift, and the power of grace forges these realities in our hearts and souls!  We pray that you will experience the power of God’s grace for you as you read Romans 5:1-11 and may it transform your withered hope into a fountain of new possibilities and potential! 

Romans 5:1-11: Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. ³ Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴ perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵ And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.⁶ You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person, someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹ Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! ¹⁰ For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! ¹¹ Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (NIV)