It’s so unfortunate to see people who love religion instead of loving God.
Since I want to let you take a peek into my life I want to be honest. I see myself when I see people living by religion. I used to be that person. Trying to earn my righteousness, living a life doing “good” because that makes me a good person for as far as I could be one. Praying and reading the bible just because I needed blessings. Being annoyed by the I-called hypocrites in church because I judged them by what they were doing outside the “holy Sundays”. Asking forgiveness whenever I did something wrong, just so I could do it again. Yes, I was living a life as a hypocrite. I was trying to be a faithful rule-follower so I could get my ticket to heaven one day. Sometimes I even felt better than non-believers. I thought that I could work for my righteousness. And through the years, this lifestyle was so tiring because I always failed in constantly trying to be “good”.
Whenever something bad happened in my life during that time, I always blamed God for my misery. “Why do bad things still happen while I’m such a good person? I don’t deserve this”– I thought. I even wanted to leave church a couple of times because I kept on trying but it got me nowhere. I loved God superficially. My mind made its own image of how God looked like and I felt too unworthy after a while because I couldn’t be good all the time. Right before I was about to make an ultimate decision to live a Godless life, there I met Grace.
Even though I’ve went to church for many years, always hearing “grace” coming out of different pastor’s mouths, it never hit me. I thought that God’s grace applied to people who are good, people who ask forgiveness daily and to people who really earned it until God really showed me what Grace really is. Grace = Jesus. Grace is something we don’t deserve, yet we get it freely. Why? Because His love is scandalous. He loves us TOO much and we will never fully understand why or how. Despite our sin, brokenness, unholiness, hypocrisy and our darkest self, He does, and we only need to accept that. We don’t have to work for our righteousness (we never could anyway), it is already ours because of the cross.
To accept His grace is to open your heart and surrender. That’s it. It took me some time to let my stubbornness and hypocrisy aside. And it definitely took some time to humble myself before God. I’m not perfect now, not saying that, I’m still a mess. But God can make something beautiful out of a mess. You need different experiences and seasons in your life until you fully will understand that you can’t do it on your own.
Ask Him to change your heart, even if it means you need to go through stuff that will hurt. Let His Grace overflow in your life and you will be amazed. Period.
Love,
Yin
It’s so unfortunate to see people who love religion instead of loving God.
Since I want to let you take a peek into my life I want to be honest. I see myself when I see people living by religion. I used to be that person. Trying to earn my righteousness, living a life doing “good” because that makes me a good person for as far as I could be one. Praying and reading the bible just because I needed blessings. Being annoyed by the I-called hypocrites in church because I judged them by what they were doing outside the “holy Sundays”. Asking forgiveness whenever I did something wrong, just so I could do it again. Yes, I was living a life as a hypocrite. I was trying to be a faithful rule-follower so I could get my ticket to heaven one day. Sometimes I even felt better than non-believers. I thought that I could work for my righteousness. And through the years, this lifestyle was so tiring because I always failed in constantly trying to be “good”.
Whenever something bad happened in my life during that time, I always blamed God for my misery. “Why do bad things still happen while I’m such a good person? I don’t deserve this”– I thought. I even wanted to leave church a couple of times because I kept on trying but it got me nowhere. I loved God superficially. My mind made its own image of how God looked like and I felt too unworthy after a while because I couldn’t be good all the time. Right before I was about to make an ultimate decision to live a Godless life, there I met Grace.
Even though I’ve went to church for many years, always hearing “grace” coming out of different pastor’s mouths, it never hit me. I thought that God’s grace applied to people who are good, people who ask forgiveness daily and to people who really earned it until God really showed me what Grace really is. Grace = Jesus. Grace is something we don’t deserve, yet we get it freely. Why? Because His love is scandalous. He loves us TOO much and we will never fully understand why or how. Despite our sin, brokenness, unholiness, hypocrisy and our darkest self, He does, and we only need to accept that. We don’t have to work for our righteousness (we never could anyway), it is already ours because of the cross.
To accept His grace is to open your heart and surrender. That’s it. It took me some time to let my stubbornness and hypocrisy aside. And it definitely took some time to humble myself before God. I’m not perfect now, not saying that, I’m still a mess. But God can make something beautiful out of a mess. You need different experiences and seasons in your life until you fully will understand that you can’t do it on your own.
Ask Him to change your heart, even if it means you need to go through stuff that will hurt. Let His Grace overflow in your life and you will be amazed. Period.
Love,
Yin
