I’m now midway through the second week of classes. Class assignments and reading are starting to pick up. I read part of Plato’s Republic for Philosophy last night… it’s crazy how brilliant that guy’s mind was. I can’t even begin to dream of thinking or having knowledge like that guy. Crazyness! But classes are going well… I feel like I am slowly getting back into things and gaining a better grasp of what this semester is going to look like.

Do you ever have those days that you just want to sit down and do nothing? Ok, i’m not going to lie… I am kind of there right now. My mind is so crammed full of other thoughts and other things, it’s hard to be motivated to pick up Philosophy or Biology or Macroeconomics… goodness. It’s times like these that I really need words of encouragement or wisdom. Which is kind of funny, because my roommate just pointed me to another one of Oswald Chamber’s works. It’s called “Partakers of Grace.” Again, I wasn’t going to type it all out and out it on here, but I know that it was a huge encouragement and inspiration to me – so I thought I would share.

“Partakers of Grace”

by Oswald Chambers

“For by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” – Ephesians 2:8 RV

“No man can be saved by praying, by believing, by obeying, or by consecration; salvation is a free gift of God’s almighty grace. We have the sneaking idea that we earn things and get into God’s favour by what we do – by praying, by our repentance: the only way we get into God’s favour is by the sheer gift of His grace. The first thing we consciously experience is a sense of undeserving-ness, but it does take some of us a long while to know we don’t deserve to be saved. ‘I really am sorry for what I have done wrong; I really am sick of myself ‘ – if only I am sick enough of myself, I will be sick to death; I am driven to despair, I can do nothing; then I am exactly in the place where I can receive the overflowing grace of God.

“In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.” – Ephesians 1:7

Think what God’s forgiveness means: it means that He forgets away every sin. Forgetting in the Divine mind is an attribute, in the human mind it is a defect, consequently God never illustrates His Divine forgetfulness by human pictures, but by pictures taken from His own creation – “As far as east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” – Psalm 103:12. “I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions…” – Isaiah 44:22.  The reason God never uses the human illustration is that a human being is incapable of forgiving as God does until he is made like God through regeneration. We take the forgiveness of sins to mean something we can understand, it is such a tremendous thing that it takes the Holy Spirit to enable us to begin to understand what is made ours through the grace of God. The forgiveness of God means that we are forgiven into a new relationship with God in Christ so that the forgiven man is the holy man.

“God is able to make all grace abound unto you…” – 2 Corinthians 9:8 RV

In talking to people you will be amazed to find that they much more readily listen if you talk on the line of suffering, of the attacks of the devil; but get on the triumphant line of the Apostle Paul, talk about the superconquering life, about God making all His Divine grace abound, and they lose interest – ‘That is all in the clouds,’ a sheer indication that they have never begun to taste the unfathomable joy that is awaiting them if they will only take it. All the great prevailing grace of God is ours for the drawing on, and it scarcely needs any drawing on, take out the ’stopper’ and it comes out in torrents; and yet we just manage to squeeze out enough grace for the day – ’sinning in thought, word and deed every day’! You don’t find that note in the New Testament. We have to keep in the light as God is in the light and the grace of God will supply supernatural life all the time. Thank God there is no end to His grace if we will keep in the humble place. The overflowing grace of God has no limits, and we have to set no limits on it, but ‘grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.’”

After reading that… each and every time I read it… I am just filled with the desire to wholeheartedly give back to God all that hinders my daily walk with Him. I desire to “taste the unfathomable joy that is awaiting” me. Each new day presents that opportunity. Each new day is a gift God has given. Don’t waste it… “taste the unfathomable joy” of God’s grace.