He feels quite comfortable in God’s presence because he is deeply convinced that, as a righteous man, he deserves to be there. What’s shocking about this prayer is that it is not a prayer at all. There is nothing prayerlike about what this man is doing. What he says is not prayerlike in posture, attitude, or content.

“May your kingdom come in all that I think, desire, and say. May your kingdom come in my marriage and in my family. May your kingdom come in my work. May your kingdom come in my leisure. May your kingdom so rule my heart that stepping over your boundaries would no longer be attractive to me.”

But there is one thing today that confronts me as it did the year before: I am not a grace graduate.

You have been called to be the look on his face, the tone of his voice, and the touch of his hand. You are to represent his presence and his love. You are placed where you are to make his mercy and faithfulness visible and concrete. This all means that your life doesn’t belong to you anymore.

What you and I must meditate on every day is the absolute perfection and completeness of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was perfect in his life, perfect in his death, and perfect in his resurrection. There is nothing we could ever think, desire, say, or do that could in any way add to the forgiveness and acceptance that we have received from

Right now, Jesus is ruling over all things. That means that every situation, relationship, and location of your life is ruled by King Christ. You cannot be in a place that is not under his rule.

So he gave you exactly what you need so that you can be what you’re supposed to be and do what he has called you to do even in the broken surroundings where you live.

You see, the message of the infusion of God’s grace is that you haven’t been left to your track record. You aren’t restricted to your limited collection of personal spiritual resources. Rather, in Christ, you have been given both a new identity and new potential. How could this new potential be more radically and powerfully stated than in the

It is only when you understand the completeness of your justification (that your penalty has been paid and you have been made eternally right with God by the life and death of Jesus) that you are able to rest in the ongoing discipline of your sanctification.