Make It Out Alive: A 5 Day Devotional by Kristian StanfillSample

Grace

Have you ever found yourself lying awake at night, unable to sleep, and suddenly reminded of every shortcoming you’ve ever had? You start thinking about every broken promise, every time you’ve lost your temper, every careless word spoken, and every sin you’ve ever committed. In these moments, the weight of condemnation can feel overwhelming and leave you paralyzed by shame.

I’ve been there more than I’d care to admit.

On those dark nights, I let the cycle of sin and shame go on for too long until I remembered something that finally broke through into my heart and mind. I remembered grace. God’s grace. I remembered that because I am a son of God, bought by the blood of Jesus, my inheritance is grace and not shame. Listening to these lies on repeat, somewhere over time, I had forgotten this essential truth.

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” – Romans 8:1-2

I found power and freedom in the night when I started bringing this truth of God’s abundant grace into the conversation. No longer would the enemy get the last word. God had already spoken His grace over me with love and tenderness. God’s word and promises are our best weapons when the voice of the accuser comes. As a child of God, we must diligently fill our minds and hearts with truth so that when the enemy starts speaking lies about who we are or how ashamed we should be about what we’ve done, we have the Word of God to pierce through the darkness.

Below are a few scriptures that have helped me with this that I think could help you too:

“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” – 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” – Ephesians 2:1-10

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 8:38-39

God’s word is the authentic truth about us as redeemed sons and daughters. This is the mic drop the enemy doesn’t want us to know about. Once, we were dead and lost, but now we are alive and found. Grace is real. His name is Jesus.