Time to publish

Well readers, this isn't obvious to you but I've been preparing this blog for a few weeks now, collecting ideas for the first posts, writing and rewriting, checking, fixing. Over numerous reads and rereads I've removed almost all fluff and left just the concentrated facts. I hope those don't overwhelm you, or maybe I do. How about this: I hope they move you. Continuing on, I guess I've been waiting for the final nudge, whatever it may be, I needed to open up this blog for you to read it. I believe that nudge came today.

The post before this I finished just this morning, that is, the part about struggling to really hand myself over completely and how I had spells where I thought Jesus was too beautiful to be tainted by someone like me. In thoughts like that, I was actually undermining the beauty of Jesus, I was challenging the Grace of God. I was saying the Gospel wasn't enough. And I thought those things, because although I had begun to turn myself to God, I had not yet completely. I was asking for all of Christ, but holding back pieces of myself. In finding the strength to surrender all, I know that I in my entirety am Loved by God and saved through Christ.

Well, I reflected on that this morning and then headed off to church. The topic? Believing that Love wins, that Jesus saves, and these verses:

^{II Corinthians:
15} And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

I am saved through Christ. I must no longer let the burnt trees standing in my yard force me to view myself differently from how God views me. The burnt embers of my past have been washed away. They are not swept into a closet, they are not set aside to be remembered later. In God's eyes they do not exist and so must I also see myself, as God sees me - made pure and new so that I might go forth in life as His servant, as His ambassador on Earth, and share His message with you, and hopefully many.

God is Good, people. God is Great! I'm glad you're here. I'm glad I'm here, and I'm just so moved every day that I can't help but reach out and spread the good news I have heard.
God bless!