Start from the right place – a place of grace

I’ve recently been learning about starting from the right place. (And for those of you who read my last blog post, this was written in January and I'm now 'taking the cling film off'!)

So often I feel condemned and a failure for my lack of love and service for the Lord. He’s been showing me this happens when I start from the wrong place.

The wrong place I keep starting from is a place of legalism where I think I have to do certain things to please God. I’m a great believer in discipline and persevering when things are hard and following through with your commitments (all good things). So when I decide for example on a plan of a certain amount of Bible reading or time in prayer, I charge in with a huge amount of determination and will power. And I can get quite a distance out of my resources. But this is what I find:

1) It becomes a burden – a plate to keep spinning, a ‘box’ to keep ticking, a ‘thing’ on the ‘to do’ list

2)Eventually I trip up, I mess up, I fail and end up feeling condemned and rubbish that my love for God is so small I can’t even do ‘x’.

And despite hearing many messages about grace, I somehow struggle to think they apply to me and my particular failures and weaknesses.

Somehow I need to break free from the legalism of works that I’ve turned my service into and start again from a different place: a place of grace.

The place of grace says I am loved, I am accepted, saved and forgiven, even if I do nothing. “Just receive my love” says grace. Then, if I truly let myself believe and accept his grace, I desire to express my love to God in some way. For example, I want to know him more and spend time reading his word.

The external action -  reading the Bible regularly – is the same as before. And yet the motivation is love rather than legalism.

So what happens on the day I don’t read the Bible? If I’m coming from the place of grace then I’m secure in knowing his love for me never depended on my performance anyway. His love for me flows from an infinite resource of grace and mercy that is not ruffled by my ups and downs.

I’ve tried to express it in these two diagrams:

Thank you Father for your great grace. Help me receive it until I spill over with it in my life. Help me break free from destructive legalistic cycles of performance. Amen.