Hello! I'm Amanda. I'm a Christ-follower, and my favorite things to do are read, write, sing, swim, and play with my cats. :) I appreciate you taking time to read my thoughts! In case you were wondering about the title of this blog, I simply chose it because love is always the answer. Anything can be fixed with love, and nothing is anything without it. :) Whether you are a Christian or not, I hope that my posts encourage you, as well as help you gain different perspectives. Have a spectacular day, and don't forget how loved you are. :)

Thursday, May 22, 2014

The Magnitude

I try my best to be generally aware of how much God does for us, but only occasionally does the magnitude of it dawn on me. I know that I mess up a lot, but on some days when it seems like I'm doing even worse than usual, I suddenly realize how much grace God must have. Honestly, think about it for a couple minutes. Think about every single thing you've done since you woke up today. How many of your thoughts were well controlled? How many of your actions were kind? How many minutes of your day were you patient? How many minutes did you spend being grateful? How many times did you think about someone in a loving way? How many times did you think before speaking? How many times did you choose to be selfless? For all of us, it piles up to a whole lot of things that displease God. I don't think anyone can say that even just today, they didn't fail in those ways. We're all imperfect. But I'm not just going to finish there--or, more like God isn't just going to finish there. He very easily could. He could just leave us to rot in our never ending pit; we certainly deserve that. Maybe you did something kind today. Great! Unfortunately, God is perfect, so you've still got an impossibly long way to go. Ready for the good news though? God loves you too much to leave you in that pit to rot. Every time we do something wrong, He should strike us down with lightning--but that's where His mercy comes in. The absolute only thing able to save you, is if someone perfect died in your place. But even if a person was perfect, who would be willing to do that? I mean, come on, we're born with sinful desires. We slip up every 30 seconds. We do awful, awful things, to God and to each other. Well I suppose there is Jesus--He's perfect. But He's God, He never did anything wrong. He's actually the one person in the universe who does not deserve to die. But He did die. For me, for you, for everyone. He didn't just take the blame and punishment for one person's sins. That alone would have been spectacular. No. He took the blame and punishment for every single person who will walk this earth. Billions and billions of people who will do billions and billions of wrong things in their lives. All we have to do is accept God and strive to live for Him, which is not all that hard, because He's pretty awesome. Not only does God willingly offer payment for our sins, He loves us more than we can imagine despite our wickedness. Now, on another note, this amazing grace does not give you a free pass to sin all you want. It is because of this grace that He deserves your effort to follow what His Word says. 

Every day, try to take time and reflect on what God does for you. He deserves every bit of your thanks. And just be sure to never forget the magnitude of His grace. 

"Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." ~Hebrews 4:16~

"But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." ~Romans 5:8~


--Love, Amanda