His secret purpose framed from the very beginning [is] to bring us to our full glory. — 1 Corinthians 2:7 NEB
Everywhere you look, it’s so easy to see a world pocked with scarcity. And you hunger for soul-filling in a world that is starved.
But from that garden beginning, God has had a different purpose for you. Open the Bible and there are His plans, and His love letter to us forever silences any doubts: He means to rename us — to return us to our true names, our truest selves.
God’s wisdom is something mysterious that goes deep into the interior of His purposes. You don’t find it lying around on the surface. It’s not the latest message, but more like the oldest — what God determined as the way to bring out His best in us. — 1 Corinthians 2:7 MSG
From the very beginning, that Eden beginning, this has always been and continues to be His secret purpose: our return to our full glory, to bring out His best in us.
Us! And yet since we took a bite out of the fruit and tore into our own souls, God’s had this wild secretive plan. In the midst of everything: He means to fill us with glory again. With glory and grace.
Grace means “favor,” from the Latin gratia. It connotes a free readiness. That’s grace: a free and ready favor.
It is one thing to choose to take the grace offered at the cross. But to choose to live as one daily filling with His grace? Choosing to daily fill with all that He freely gives, and to fully live—with glory and grace and God? God’s grace upon grace, God’s favor upon free and ready favor.
Much of life comes like a river: it can’t be controlled or tamed. And, too, much of life is about choosing to resist — or choosing to receive.
While living through losses, there is still a tender choice to say yes to receiving what He gives and trusting there are gifts and grace even here.
God of all gifts, thank You. Thank You! For the grace to choose to see. I choose to say yes today to all You give. Do the work in me — I want to more fully live.
I always thank my God for you because of His grace given you in Christ Jesus. — 1 Corinthians 1:4
All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. — 2 Corinthians 4:15
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. — Ephesians 2:8
Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. — 1 Thessalonians 5:18
Excerpted with permission from Gifts & Gratitudes by Ann Voskamp, copyright Ann Voskamp.
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Your Turn
The Lord’s purpose in your life is to return you to your full glory and to bring out His best in you! Choose to receive His grace today knowing that He loves you. ~ Devotionals Daily
