Grace is the good news that God is not aloof. Grace is the encouraging declaration that He is present and engaged. Grace is the pursuit of God to encounter me face-to-face. 

In time, their wings grow stronger and their independence more confident.

God’s opinion of you should be the definition of self you cling to. Seeing yourself as He sees you must define who you are.

If you have satisfactorily defined your identity by the stamp of earthly success, finding motivation to redefine your identity—by any other standard—seems nonsensical. 

The intriguing thing about identity is how tempting it can be to define who you are by all we have discussed and fail to consider the opinion of God, the architect of your soul. I wonder what His opinion is of who you are? 

Without vision and revelation we do not have the necessary elements to be focused, healthy people.

But then life bore down upon me, my world, my theology, and my God. As the labor of life stiffened, I suffered what is called a crisis of belief.

The choice was ours to make: life or death. 

While it is hard to get to know some folks, such is not the case with Jesus. He invites us into His heart, asks us to share His life, and promises never to leave us and always to join us. 

While all of the above is true of Jesus, it is only biographical information about Him. The question was, “Do you know Jesus Christ?”

I read his blogs. In fact, I heard Pres speak at our church, and even had dinner with him while he was in town. I read his first novel last summer and have his second book nearly finished.

Indeed, grace is what Jesus did for us that resulted in us being embraced within the favor of God. But more important: Grace is who Jesus is!

God looked into His heart of grace, spoke what was in His heart regarding life and light for mankind, and then personified His heart of grace in the person of Jesus Christ.

I thought grace was a theological concept. 

When Jesus declared, “I will show you the Father,” He invited all listening to see God as they had never dreamed of seeing Him. 

Vision is compelling. It can cause people to rise to a noble occasion.

Vision is powerful. It can change whole countries. 

Followers of Christ are given a new heart when we are transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.

The heart is the core of us, the deepest and most thoroughgoing aspect of us.

In the same way God raised Christ from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand, so He has done to us and for us who are Believers.