It's me, mike hillebrecht

The rich young entrepreneur comes to Jesus seeking an audience so that he can expand his future business. “How do I create more wealth in this life?” he asks. “You know what you’ve been taught from an early age. Don’t steal from your employees; Don’t tell lies about your competitor’s product when yours doesn’t meet the customer’s requirements; keep your love life completely separate from your business life because mistresses make terrible employees; honor the founders who put you on the path your traveling,” was Jesus’ reply.

“I’ve followed these rules since my youth.”

But the young entrepreneur became very sad and walked away because he didn’t want to create competitors in his industry.

In the Kingdom of Grace your relationship with others is all that matters for the rest of your eternal life. Competitors think win/lose. Kingdom people think abounding wins for all. Are you chalking up more in “your” win column than in “our” win column? Is your skill set ready to be moved into a kingdom mode? If you think so, then rest realize that it has never been about you. Second, from this moment on, it will never be about you either. Welcome to kingdom life!

Remember the day that you believed that a woman took a cruse of oil and poured it out into all the pots in her village to pay off the people who wanted her sons as slaves? How excited you must have felt to know that miracles are a staple of God’s kingdom. Didn’t you feel tempted to run home and try it out for yourself? What? You didn’t! Well, that’s understandable, not many of us can use a lot of oil, right? But how about the day you believed that seven loaves of bread and a couple of pieces of fish feed over five thousand people and they even had leftovers! Surely on that day you had to try it out for yourself!

No luck there either? Look I’m not even going to ask you about the believer’s commission of taking up snakes and drinking harmful stuff since that probably isn’t for you either. So as a “believer” where are you releasing all of this…this… belief in the supernatural?

What, in church! You mean you get together with other believers and release your belief upon each other? Don’t you kinda think that is kinda like preaching to the choir? Oh, don’t get me wrong. You got to have a safe place to practice with all the power locked up inside the bunch of you. But do you have a plan for the day that you decide to unleash who you truly are upon the world, or at least in Walmart? Just asking.

Rows upon rows of box-like houses dot the landscape of every city of this country. What once used to be a wild expanse of scenery that anyone could freely enjoy has been sculpted into right-angle thoroughfares which have determined egress and access points carefully placed to accentuate the “neighborhood.” These neighborhoods all look exactly alike and on weekends, when the occupants are at home, even the neighborhood fixtures (i.e. mowers, cars, bikes, kids) all look the same too. House colors, finish materials, landscape features, trees and shrubs, parking areas, satellite antenna placement, motor home parking and a whole host of other items have built-in deed restrictions in these “wholesome” communities. All these and features are designed to keep the characteristics of the community intact from rogue homeowners.

Church, no Christianity, in this modern world has gone suburban. The buildings and its activities must follow the same deed and design restrictions the community has. Forget the first-church model in these communities – no home churches allowed because it causes parking issues for the neighbors. No pillars or tongues of re permitted because the re district doesn’t allow open air burning without a permit. No breaking bread or drinking wine because of health code issues and blood alcohol level restrictions placed on driving. If you’re going to sing, caution must be used not to exceed the permitted sound levels that are in place to not adversely affect the neighbors. Should you determine to minister and assist those who are in need of medical care, that you need to make certain the appropriate licenses have been obtained and kept current by the medical staff. Of course there is the issue of making certain that all the workers you have who attend to the children have been properly trained to follow certain protocols for health and sanitation. And if they have and past issues with the legal community then you are pretty certain that you better not put them in any of those positions. Is it any wonder that in most communities the Church is considered the best law-abiding model they could have?

What would happen is the community leaders actually found out that the real church doesn’t adhere to any of the law; or that they truly are rebels trying to take over their community for a distant king? If the real church began to show up in their communities and healed the sick, cast out demons, delivered people from addictions, fed and clothed the poor and hungry, while singing and praising the Lord at the top of their lungs do you think that they would like to have so many of them in their neighborhoods? After all, in suburbia, all that activity is not permitted without the appropriate forms being filled out and submitted in triplicate. But don’t worry. I was just imagining for a moment the possibility of a law-less church and it went to my head. Carry on at a respectable level.

…for you are not under the law, but under grace. (Rom 6:14)

Wheat and tares or sheep and goats. Which is it going to be people? Let me state right up front that I’m sick and tired – yes – sick and tired of believers losing their minds of Christ in order to soothe the angst of a retributive nature they still think possesses them. Yes, that’s right, this is a matter of good, faithful believers being possessed! Don’t tell me by some outdated doctrinal position that possession is not possible when I can see it in your red bulging eyes seeking to escape the sockets of your skull like some Looney-Tune character.

As sure as my deodorant will make my pits smell manly after a stressful workout, your religious convictions will soothe your inner turmoil after reading what I’ve just typed feeling superior in the knowledge that come judgment day, those…those… well, they’ll get their just rewards. You’ll use the wheat and tares or sheep and goat motif to back up the proof to your holy excursion into the Valley of Armageddon. You feel safe in a future justification, right?

Let me ask you something. Why is it that the parable of the wheat and tares and the sheep and the goats only appears in the book of Matthew? Two end-time blockbusters with the power to level the playing field are only recorded in the one “gospel” account that is blatantly pro-Law. What? You’ve never heard of such a thing as a gospel being bent to the point of embracing the Law?

How is it possible that you’ve never considered that Matthew, a Jewish Christian (what, you never heard of that term either!), writing his narrative some fifteen years after the death of Paul, the apostle of grace, from the home church of Paul in Antioch, is attempting to remove the influence grace has created within the Gentile church (what, even this too!) by tying the message of Jesus back to the Law? Oh, forgive me, I just made that up! These are the things nightmares are made of, disunity in the church, grace versus the law, Paul versus Peter, and such.

You have taken the blue pill of “churchanity” becoming another of the minions to mindless sycophants committed to the message of the empire they extolled from their lectern four years ago, and four years before that, and so on and so on. Sure you read your bible, but you don’t know what it says, let alone know what it means, outside of the book of Matthew and the rest of the Old testament canon. Oh sure, you occasionally read James so that your works mentality can be slathered with condemnation, but really, is that all there is?

If you still live under the specter that someone, some group, some corporation or nation owes you something, you need to man up and die like a real Christian. Show me one retributive act that Jesus accomplished, just one. He is owed a whole lot more than your or my sorry flame-scorched backside could every claim. So where is his pay back? Where is his day of justice?

But your denomination probably supports the big, mean, red-headed beast of a dragon who will take all of the world down to the depths of some pit of eternal barbeque for the uninvited simply because it’s described in the last book of the bible. If that is your only reason, how could you not then know that John is truly the last book of the New Testament canon and 3:16, poster child of every sporting event in the world, is grace not law?

If you truly knew your bible’s origin at the terrorizing, state-sponsored execution of an innocent man – one who confronted the religious order of the day because they backed wholesale exclusion of the entire world who did not live up to their standard of perfection before their self-defined deity – you might pause for a moment to reflect on whether your actions are truly your own, or are they the same as those who cheered upon the erection of that naked, beaten and bloody body of a God who forgave them for their ignorance. Wheat and tares, sheep and goats all witnessed it.

Have you ever considered that you, me and everyone else on this planet are his just reward, his pay out, his justified compensation for pain and suffering? You don’t see him separating anyone, making them feel any better or less than another like isolating the quarters from the dime and nickels while chucking the pennies.

None understood grace then, but surely, I pray, that somehow you do today. It is not now, nor has ever been about us versus them. It has always been about Him versus us – those who need forgiveness again and again. But it’s not a war – it’s a relationship with thick-headed, stiff-necked, stuck-up nosed mankind more enamored with themselves than with the author, creator – shoot – the very definition of love.

Is it possible for a moment that rational minds from a loving Creator could stop the tape of our past and maybe look into the mirror which reflects the face of our neighbor and consider that their desires and the struggles they create are no different than ours? If you want to say that their god wants them to kill you, well I’d say from your thoughts and actions your god does too! So why not take a lesson from my God and realize He doesn’t want either of you killing anyone, period. Learn to live with that because that is what He expects from His kids. He does not see either of you as a tare or a goat. So quit kicking at the tender parts expecting to get there faster. You can’t arrive at someplace you always been.

Imagine for a moment that you live in a society that has closely knit ties with each neighbor. You rely heavily on each other to help with tasks going on in each other’s *lives and protecting what belongs to the community as a whole. If a foreign entity should try to invade your territory, some of the more able people would go to defend the land while those remaining would maintain the property of those who had left. The known expectation within the community is that those left behind would go during the next crisis.

When the battles were over the victors would come home and celebrations would be held nightly within the community. Stories would be told about the great heroic feats that occurred in the recent battles and they would be mixed with memories from past events and long-lost friends. The young women of the community would joyously dance about during these galas attempting to woo the bravest souls into matrimony. Occasionally you would and some of the poorer neighbors entreating their richer ones with riches, gifts or promises in order to try to get their social standing lifted a bit higher in the eyes of the community.

Everything that you’ve just imagined actually occurred thousands of years ago. It was the societal structure of the ancient Greeks. The interplay which I described here in its various forms was described by them in the term “charis.” Unless you’re a Greek scholar, that term doesn’t generally mean anything to most people. However, it is a term that became the center point of a traveling writer centuries later who spoke to people in the region who knew and could relate to the significance of the term.

That writer was the Apostle Paul. Many historians have called him the apostle of charis, or as it is known today, the apostle of grace. As you read his letters to the various people groups he cared for, try to recognize some of the contexts that he is using to get his point across to them. The descriptions that I’ve given to you above are just of few that will lift off the page when you come across the word grace in his writings. Hopefully you now have a more rounded picture to the amazing nature of grace. Enjoy your reading.

The disciples came to Jesus and asked him to teach them how to pray. What followed has for two millennium been tagged as the Lord’s prayer. However, the question you should ask yourself today is whether this model of prayer is correct according to the finished works of the cross. The disciples asked this of Jesus prior to the cross and yet in many ways they never understood what Jesus came on the earth to do.

Now some may make an issue about this line of thinking because after all these are the words and actions of Jesus. But consider the following prayer, this side of the cross, and see whether is a more accurate picture of our position in Christ.

My Father who resides within me. Great is your family name by which I have been called into.
Your kingdom has come and is being done on this earth in me just as it is in heaven where I also sit as a co-heir.
Thank You that through Jesus, the bread of life, all of my daily needs are met according to Your riches in His glory.
Thank you that You have forgiven and forgotten all of my debts, past, present and future, and likewise the debts of my neighbor so that I may love them like Christ loved me.
Thank You for delivering me out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of Your light in the love of Christ. For through Christ You have given us Your power, Your Kingdom and Your Spirit forever and ever. Amen.

The choice is yours. Be a disciple either before or after the cross. Your prayer will accurately reflect your position and more importantly reflect the image of God’s work in you.

Genesis 1:1 KJVR
(1) In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

You’ve read or heard it preached a million (it seems) times. It’s gotten to the point where you ignore the syntax, the linguistic plurality, the hermeneutical nuances (who comes up with these terms), and the root word extractions. Today, in your mind, God created. Big whoop! This big ethereal being with no time on His hands decides to play Betty Crocker, says a few words, waves a wand and poof, life on a big blue orb is thrust into an even bigger black void of nothingness, all of it trying to make some sense of why…Oh crap! The chicken is burning! Great, just great. Thanks a lot God! There, how did that feel? The bible says to give thanks in all things. Did you feel the love in that one?

Life. God. Love.

Each one of these is centered on one thing: relationship. If you’re like most people when first reading Genesis 1:1 you didn’t see anything resembling relationship. You, like me and most people, see God, a singular entity doing God-type stuff. Generally, as a matter of course, you learned that there was God, the Father, Jesus, the son, and Holy Spirit, three in one. While you recognized that they all existed, their relationship always was kinda murky. Sure you have a relationship with one of them which is maybe stronger than what you have with one of the others but…well, someday this will make sense. And you live your life.

Life is fast and furious and you go to church to get some rest with God because that’s what you’re told to enter into. But then you’re in the race again and somehow you’ve got to relate the sermon to your life which is traveling at break-neck speed. Some how, some day it will make sense. But it never seems to, week after furious week. Life seems to be a paradox of contradiction, a state of being that no being longs to be long in. So you force yourself to make sense of it all, to rationalize the contradiction. You follow the path that mankind has taken since the beginning, you make a myth.

It seems harmless enough as it eases the stress of having to explain why in your life, in your mess, in your distress, in your pain, in your shame, in your humiliation and embarrassment, in all the matters that seem to matter, God, His peace and security, His love and acceptance, His hope in you…well it just didn’t seem to show up. So in our myth we place God on this throne high and lifted up above us, seeing into every nook and cranny of our lives and we know, we just know that we did something wrong. This is Him judging our actions, our thoughts. He is removing Himself from our unworthiness.

So we plead the blood of Jesus, cleanse us, please, so that we may be back in right standing with GAWWD! Some of our myths wonder if there is even a drop of blood left in his body because we have expended so much of it trying to come back just one more time to GAWWD. There is the great myth of Jesus being the good cop, who will hear our plea and shield us from the wrath of the bad cop, GAWWD. This same myth also features Jesus once again being beaten senselessly on our behalf so that GAWWD can look down from his mighty throne and reach out to embrace us. Curiously, in most every one of our myths Holy Spirit is just a mute, paralyzed bystander.

Myths are weird. Intellectual myths are even weirder yet. However, they have become our means to explain the unexplainable, the contradiction to our perceptions. We create myths to align our perceptions to our beliefs. If you follow this out properly, logically, we create God out of how we believe he relates to us in our mess of a fast and furious life. They help us cope with the lack of life, the lack of love, the lack of God, and more importantly, the lack of a meaningful relationship with the one who allegedly holds the title of Father.

If this seems dark and foreboding, realize this is just the breaking of the dawn compared to some myths believers have created. You, even myself for that matter, would not want to peek into their inner darkness as they lift their hands in praise and shout “hallelujah!” at the pastor. And these are just the myths of the believers. Imagine those who have experienced an act of GAWWD!

This is what the grace of Jesus came into two thousand years ago and still resides in today. He came to reveal the Father, not as a continuation of our Adamic myths but as a truth found in a face-to-face relationship described “in the beginning.” At every point of our mythological journey with GAWWD, Jesus demonstrates the truth of the Father to us to properly align our perceptions to God. Paul calls this process “renewing the mind.”

Ask any man involved in a home decor issue with a woman what is the one statement that they fear more than any other and it will be, “I’ve changed my mind!” Nothing, not blood, vomit or dismemberment, sends a shudder through the male body faster than this statement. Not many understand just how hard it is to ramp up all your energies to complete a task only to have it delayed or sidelined by indecisiveness on the part of another. But that is just what God has to deal with from us. Kinda turned the table and caught you with that one didn’t I? Let me explain.

God’s kingdom is already around us, every living soul, and even those not so living. We move and operate in it often without even knowing we’re doing so. Father has an agenda which we are all a part of, yes all of us are a part of it, not apart from it. The hazard we face is the claim, “I’ve changed my mind.” Often we don’t even make the claim but do things that fulfill it. Our actions betray our thoughts.

The new covenant believer is actually encouraged to change their mind quite frequently in God’s word. There are a couple of terms in the Greek writings known as metanoeō and metanoia. The English translation for these terms shows up as the word “repent” and “repentance”, two words that have almost the same affect on unbelievers and believers alike, a deep shudder. The reason is quite simple if you understand the meaning of another word, a word which is actually French, a word from about the 1300’s which is a lot like the Old English word from the same period. That word is “repentance” which comes from the word “penitence.”

Allow me for a moment to delve into this French word that we’ve been applying to our Greek-to-English translation. Beginning with the root word of “penitence,” this word means to be penitent, sorrowful for one’s wrongdoings. Now this brings us an interesting consideration around the issue of being penitent. Penitent as an adjective means to expressing sorrow for wrongdoing; however as a noun, as in a penitent person, it is a person who confesses sins and submits to a penance. Penance comes from the Latin word paenitentia and it means a punishment undertaken as a token for sin; a discipline imposed by church authority.

Okay, let’s look at this situation and rightly divide the word, or in this case words. We have on the one hand the Greek-to-English words repent/repentance versus the French-to-English word repent/repentance. All words appear to be identical in meaning simply because no one looks at what translation the word is representing. But there is a BIG difference.

Let’s consider this bible quote, offered to us by John the Baptist and later adopted by Jesus. “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” Does this mean, a.) Change your mind, change how you’re thinking about the kingdom of God not being near you, because it is all around you right now; or b.) get on your knees, snot and bawl about your unworthiness, confess your ineptitude to follow any commandments, ask for forgiveness promising to be better in the future and offer to sacrifice your time as punishment for your transgression BECAUSE the Kingdom of God in near. Which of these two scenarios do you believe to be the truth, A or B?

Before you jump in here with an answer how about thinking for a moment. I’m asking you to believe the truth belongs to either a.) the original Greek writings, or b.) a word 1,300 years after the events happened. Now I know that this is difficult to fathom that the entire concept of repentance in the church has been influenced by this blatant disregard to accuracy. Even those staunch theologians who have written volumes about the matter have been swayed by this propensity to flog a dead horse. So why am I even writing about this?

Someone said in a discussion the other day that we needed to “repent in our heart” for our actions. I almost fell off my chair! They obviously were sincere but ill-informed. You can’t change your heart. God does. He gives every new believer a new one, but that is the last one you get. Your mind on the other hand, you can change that as many times as you need to. Regrettably, this is not the attitude that this dear person was trying to communicate. They felt that we should get down on our faces with a contrite heart and wail for forgiveness before an all mighty God promising to change our ways of sinning (yes, that is exactly what I meant), to be better people and offer ourselves, our lives and commitment to His will, as the sacrifice required to see change.

Honey, pardon my abruptness, but you are too full of yourself and just what you think you have to offer. You need to realize that 2,000 years ago Jesus did all that needed to be done. He even admitted that it was finished. You, me, or anyone for that matter, who believes otherwise is just spitting in the wind. Sure it sometimes is good to the soul to get all genuflecting and snot up a storm about our sorrowful state of affairs -but – ultimately, the Father is just asking you to change your mind, not your goober-encrusted shirt. If you think that you must jump through some hoops and do a few dog-and-pony-tricks to make this change in your mind effective, go at it. It’s like those times when a child does something they are so proud of and they exclaim with glee, “Daddy, look at me!” and then they do it again and respond, “Daddy, look at me!” and then they do it again and respond, “Daddy, look at me!”and then they do it again and respond, “Daddy, look at me!”…are you getting the point? Once was great, but…grow up!

So the next time that you’re in a meeting and the speaker tells you that you need to repent for something, ask them if they mean repent according to the meaning of the Greek or according to the meaning of the Latin definition of a French word. Actually, you won’t even have to ask that if they are flagging people down to the altar. You’ll know right away that kids are trying to impress the Father again.

“Are you in or out?”

This is a phrase most commonly declared in card games to the undecided player. Do you want to participate in the risk and potential of winning or sit out for the next go around? If you’ve got a bad hand, then follow the advice of Kenny Rogers know it time to fold ’em. Yet if it’s a great hand, you’re all in!

Inclusion. exclusion, or all.

Church words! Whole denominations have been created to argue their perspective of a divine truth. Are you included at the exclusion of someone else? Why bother because I’ve been excluded from the “chosen frozen” and that is alright with me. “When we all get to heaven…” Does that include the excluded or only apply to us who are included?

Denomination.

How many pennies in a dollar? Easy answer for most adults – 100. All coins are a denomination of a main standard, in our case a dollar. Yet if you have 99 pennies you don’t posses a dollar. If it is a dollar you need, you will search high and low, in couches and dryer vents, sock drawers and under car seats to find the one that makes a dollar. Your search for a denomination drives you to feel complete and satisfied with what it will buy for you.

But what do you do if you find a nickel in your search? Do you rejoice at the added riches you’ve uncovered or do you toss aside four pennies because they aren’t needed anymore? What if you found a quarter? How do you feel about those twenty-one pennies who have been with you throughout the search but now seem like extra baggage you have to haul around? Does the higher the value of the find make you place a lesser significance on the rest which comprise the whole?

One.

“Father I pray that they be one as we are one.” Two being one, how is this possible? But Jesus is asking for something even greater, billions being one! In the bible there are two people groups clearly identified: Israel and those who aren’t. Israel was the chosen ones then, and still are today and will still be tomorrow. Everyone else, that’s you and me, your grandma, great aunts, fifth cousins from a second marriage, all of us together were not, have not, and never will be Israel. And yet…Jesus wants us to be one with Him and the Father.

Today there are over 7 billion people on this planet and maybe 100 million of them are recognized according to bible standards as Israel. Less than 1% of the entire world population, according to the bible standard, is included in Israel. The rest of the world is excluded simply by birth. Yet the various people groups of the world are clamoring to make Israel be like one of them even to the point of trying to look like Israel so that they’ll “fit in” when they come together with Israel.

One New Man.

“God so loved the world…” Our Father is big. He thinks and loves big. BIG! Trust me when I say that you will never think or love as big as He does. As a matter of fact, we all have greatly under-estimated Him. Does that exclude us? Nope. That is just our introduction to His big thoughts and love! In under-estimating Him we have minted a currency that will never equal the standard. Our various denominations all interact not realizing that when you bring them all together they still do not add up to the value of the one. If you want to get legal about it, we’ve counterfeited God by saying and doing things that do not measure up to who He truly is.

A counterfeiter knows what the true standard is but they are willing to use their own efforts to try to replicate that standard at the risk of being caught in the lie. These same counterfeiters in order to escape the authorities will create smaller denominations in order to pass them around to as many places as they can to get others to spread their misdeeds thereby not creating a trail that leads directly back to them.

However, out of the bigness of their love and the grace that extends from it, the Godhead created in Jesus one new man who would set the standard of everyone who followed him thereafter. Not follow him in thought and discipline, not in some creed or daily bible study program, but truly be created, or birthed after him. No special inclusion, or secret exclusion, but all encompassing just like their love. This is the value of their oneness that they desire for you and me.

Am I saying that we’re all born again? No, but for 2,000 years we have been after Him. And while the 99% still are not Israel, Love has declared that they are His, lock, stock, and barrel. Now I know that many will reject what I’m claiming here simply because their denomination doesn’t believe in such things. My question to you is what about under-estimating don’t you understand? Paul demands the renewing of our mind because he simple want to know, are you in or out?

Significant emotional events are the knots in the tapestry of each person life. Happiness or sadness, surprise or horror, fellowship or estrangement are just some of the trademarks we categorize these life changing events. Rarely do we realize that our lives are directed daily by the acceptance or aversion to these past events in even the simplest of choices we make.

Let me give you an example: Liver and onions. What is your first impression? Most will react in a very negative manner. I’d like to ask you to recognize when that first expression appeared in your life. What were the events of that moment; who was present; how did they react to your expression; where did this event occur? All of these questions help us to define a significant emotional event. However, they also help us to understand how you’ve distanced yourself from not only the dish, but in some instances, the people and places where that event occurred in your past.

Your reaction to any other objects present in the moment is directly proportional to the intensity of your emotions in these matters. As an example you could have had something happen in your life and there was a green tablecloth or a yellow pitcher that became a focal point during the event. Today you hate one of those colors or you love them for reasons that you really don’t know why. It’s simply because they were incidental props attached to a major memory.

What begins to happen in our lives after one of these type of occurrences is that we relive them, embellishing them and subtracting from them those items that, well honestly, just aren’t important any more. This replay of the past is what makes them significant. I once heard someone say that history doesn’t exist except as memories in a mind that is trying to come to terms with who they truly are. When you ponder on this statement properly, most people live there lives present-past. Past events define and shape their present beliefs and values.

Having laid all of this ground work, you’re probably asking, “What does this have to do with grace?”
Of late, I’ve noticed that a large number of people talking or writing on the subject of grace do so in the present-past format. Now I realize that this is a requirement in trying to describe how it affects each of our lives. However, I believe that we’re missing several vital elements in the discussion for a simple reason: We’re stuck at Jesus.

This past-present construct which is being followed seems to have stunted the development of our life by fixing our gaze on the “cross” rather than on the throne. I know that some of you will take me to task for that claim, but Paul is very clear on his perspective of things: he is present-future. He clearly recognizes that all his past died on that cross and is of no use to him, so he is pressing toward the high calling of Christ having set his eyes on things above. Now this is Paul speaking in a time when he could have witnessed the actual crucifixion. Here we are 2,000 years later, closer to the throne room realities and we’re still grappling with kindergarten theology.

Consider that Paul tells us in 2 Timothy that we were called to God’s purpose and grace before the foundations of the world. This is clearly before Jesus was on the world, yet no one likes to think of the potential of a grace life before Jesus. The significant emotional event of Jesus’ crucifixion has eliminated all prior references to a graceful life, despite the proclamation of him being the lamb slain before the world began.
Here is truth. You don’t have to believe it to be truth, simply because it is. Your web of significant emotional events were all addressed 2,000 years ago on a cross, long before you were born. But to trump even that truth is the one that you were chosen before the world began. Herein lies the significance of grace – your involvement in it does not diminish or enhance its power to influence all of humanity. It has been given to eliminate your history so that you may live His story to its fullest, a story which is on going, not stifled by the thoughts of “Woulda, coulda, shoulda.”

You can dwell on past hurts if you desire but that merely blocks the desire of the Father’s love from overwhelming you. You can reflect on the injuries of past relationships which will keep the warmth of the Spirit from emanating from within you. You can constantly draw back from a loss of friendship which will only keep you from hearing your greatest friend cheering you forward.

Today, right this moment, Jesus, a man, sits on a throne in heaven, mediating on your behalf a relationship through the Spirit based upon the gift of His life for the love of the Father. They, the trinity, are all in agreement right now just as they were 2,000 years ago. They know of no past in your life which hasn’t included them. That is how significant you are, have been, and forever will be to them. You are the value to the significance of grace!