Through God's Grace

As I mentioned last week, our church is in a 6 week sermon series on Grace.  The series has focused on Ephesians 2:1-10.  This week's sermon focused on verses 8 & 9.

This powerful verse reminds us that have not done anything to deserve God's gift of eternal life.  But he gave it freely.  We can not earn this gift by works.  Therefor, we can not boast of our actions.  We can only boast of God's grace and love towards us.

It was a powerful message and one that I need to hear over and over.  I can not do anything to earn God's love it.  It is a free gift.  Freely given.  Because of His awesome gift, I want to be in a relationship with Him.  I want to tell people what He's done in my life.  What He's doing in my life.

At the end of the sermon, Pastor David Griffin gave people the opportunity to publicly testify of God's grace in their lives.  It was awesome! People told of restored marriages, broken addictions, heath regained, lessons God has taught their families and on and on.

I felt the urge to speak but I couldn't put the words together.  Strange for a writer, I know.  But in my weakness, God is strong.

Instead of me, He gave the words to B.  Sweet B raised his hand several times.  Pastor David would look our way and I would put B's hand down.  Silly me! I should know by now that the boy knows what he's doing.  As does God.

Towards the end of the sharing time, we decided to let B speak.  David called on him. B ran down the aisle and gave this powerful testimony.

God is my guardian.  He listens to me when I pray at night with my momma.  He never leaves me.  In my soul, God is Batman and Jesus is Robin. 

(We saw the Lego Batman movie over Spring Break so I guess he had Batman and Robin on his mind too. )

His words brought me to tears.  They still do, I'm crying right now.

I have been so concerned that B would have a hard time learning to trust the LORD.  Unseen and abstract things can be difficult for people with autism.  But Sunday, God reminded me, again, that He has a plan.  And His plan is always greater than mine.

He has a plan to bring B, and each of us to Him.  And His work will not be thwarted.

Sunday afternoon, we worked in the yard and I had time to reflect on that morning.  God finally gave me the words I'd been searching for Sunday morning.

When we found out that B had autism, we had no idea what that would mean for our family.  But through God's grace, He has used that diagnosis to draw us near to Him.  He has let us be apart of His work at cLife through the Valuable ministry.   

My testimony continues this morning and every morning.

All those years ago, I would never had guessed that B would string that many words together or pronounce them clearly enough for others to understand.  And I could not image that B would understand God in such a way.  But through God's grace, I have come to understand that God speaks everyone's language.  He has a plan to bring everyone to Him.  That means everyone.  No matter if they can speak or not.  No matter if they respond in the way we think they should respond.  No matter if they compare God and Jesus to Batman and Robin.  He has a plan for each of us.  He is drawing us to Him. 

You can view the sermon here.  Because we have live preaching at all four of our campuses, this is not Pastor David but Pastor Casey.  It is essentially the same message.