Good evening everyone , it is Evangelist linda j from the UK and it is the 21 June 2020. This is a message about God’s grace for you , I will be weaving some of my own special story and to build your faith to be able to believe and to receive. The message is also available in audio and available for sharing.
The lexicon describes grace as favour, graciousness, kindness, beauty, pleasantness, charm , attractiveness, loveliness, affectionate regard and I want to share with you how these attributes are qualities of the Holy Spirit and gifts and favour God has for you.
It was 4 years after I had met and ministered to a lady at a soul winning conference for a prominent evangelist, that I saw a missed call on my phone as I was travelling on a train from A to B. It was just a speech bubble, but i was intrigued and I rang the caller back.
The caller , a lady immediately apologized for texting me. She said it was a mistake; she didn’t know how it had happened. She explained that she had had my number in her phone for over 4 years ago from a conference that I had ministered and where I had spoken into her life. She said her name was Grace . I immediately remembered her because the word Grace had meant so much to me at the time as it coincided with a word that the Lord had given me about my impending ministry . He was sending me out.
I had just come through a major personal crisis – my marriage had floundered and I was in a difficult place. I was broken and very bruised. I had no one to turn to . I didn’t know what to do, but God was already at work. I had been brought up in the church but hadn’t met the God of the Bible. I had backslided.
It was during my custody battle that I discuss elsewhere, that the Lord (the God of the Bible ) began to speak powerfully and comfortably to me. I was far away from home with no friends or family and my children gone. The Bible says that this indeed is what God does when he wants to get our attention and we are in what may seem like a wilderness. Indeed the book of Hosea says that he allures us into the wilderness so he can speak comfortably to us.
I have come to know that our God is gracious. He knows the end from the beginning of all our situations and affairs, and it is his counsel that will stand over our lives. He has good plans for us, if we will allow Him to work on our behalf.
At the time of recording this piece on Gods grace, we are still in what I am calling the teeth of Covid ( a international health crisis ) many have lost their lives , love ones, others have felt cut off and isolated not knowing which way to turn or what to do. Many are pondering the meaning of life – is this it? What i can say (and by way of experience)is that if that Father is in control and it is his desire to show us the good of the land. It is a time when we have been shut into our homes , some are going round and round in circles not knowing what to do with the time, that I see that God has allowed in his grace. Some (more knowing ) have seen it as a period of reset , a period of being locked in with him to hear what he will say. I too am standing on my rampart.
It will perhaps be my second experience of being ‘shut in’ with all what can be shaken, shaken. I will say , It is a time that God will speak with you if you just press him and ask him. It is his desire to show you how much he loves you and that He knows our name.
At the point of being ‘shut in’ in 2004, I had just lost a custody battle and given up a high paying job to escape from a situation that was untenable. I can now see in retrospect that the Lord made me so uncomfortable that I had had to make a shift . I would be lying if i said i knew at the time what i was doing or where I was going. I didnt have a clue, but i knew that a shift was necessary. I was on my downers (as they say) and in the absence of any worldly comforter ( I didn’t have no desire for fleshly comfort) I found myself crying out to God.
God spoke and showed me his grace , favor and heart towards me for good and not for evil and how he desired to bring me to an expected end.
It was the first time , I had begun to hear the Lord audibly and to see his plan and will for my life clearly being structured through the days and night season. Sixteen years later , I can say with all assurance, that what the enemy had meant for evil God turned around for my good. One of the things God had said to me in my wilderness times , is that he had anointed me as a Minister of Prayer and Grace – I had laughed like Sarah (Abraham’s wife )had laughed when she was told she would have a baby well past her childbearing age. How can anyone minister grace, I had thought.. I could understand ministering prayer but grace ? That was a new one on me. There was a lot I didn’t know at the time and I am still learning . The bible tells us that at a time of ignorance, our God winks….
In my darkest hours and moments , he showed me favor . Grace is mercy and unmerited favor. It is a free gift of God. It was nothing that I had done that was special, but because he first loved me and gave himself as a ransom for my soul.
It was the same favor that God had shown this lady Grace through the ministry of the Holy Spirit and to which I had played a part. She had been positioned at the back of the auditorium looking sad and forlorn and dejected, but God had hands on deck to minister to meet her needs and his word located her. I couldn’t remember what the issue was but i knew that I felt compassion for her and spoke as led by his Holy Spirit. Four years later she was telling me about the turn around that had happened in her life as a result of that ministry.
Not only did she share what had turned around for her , she began to quote me scripture…!! This is always a blessing when the ministered to start to themself minister the word. She reminded me that I had said ; ‘ a bruised reed shall he not break, nor a smoking flax shall he quench’ which was made me almost jump out of my skin. This was the very poster i had put up in my new living room that week . secondly she said ‘……but Linda have you read it in Message bible? The message bible puts it like this at Isaiah 42:1-4
Take a good look at my servant.
I’m backing him to the hilt.
He’s the one I chose,
and I couldn’t be more pleased with him.
I’ve bathed him with my Spirit, my life.
He’ll set everything right among the nations.
2 He won’t call attention to what he does
with loud speeches or gaudy parades.
3 He won’t brush aside the bruised and the hurt
and he won’t disregard the small and insignificant,
but he’ll steadily and firmly set things right.
4 He won’t tire out and quit. He won’t be stopped
until he’s finished his work—to set things right on earth.
Far-flung ocean islands
wait expectantly for his teaching.”
This is a picture of the Lord and Grace personified. But her message was also confirmation of a sending to a nation I was to also go and minister to but it was such an encouragement to my soul. The Bible says as He is so are we in this world. How the Lord set up the situation to confirm his word and his working is. an acute example of how he has woven grace beautifully into my life and the lives of others.
Right now God is ministering his grace to you byway of extension and by this message. We are his hands and eyes and ears in this world and we have been given delegated authority to touch our nearest and dearest and to touch our world by his grace.
God wants you to understand that you too can be a beneficiary of divine grace and favor. He is not simply the fierce judge we see and read about in the Old Testament and the image that many would rather fixate on . He is also a God of love.
The Bible says that He so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believed in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
The old law did indeed come by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ.
A picture of grace can be seen at John 8 where instead of the law producing judgment for the woman taken in adultery, Jesus said , neither do i condemn her, go and sin no more.
Father is saying today (by his grace) that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. All have sinned and come short of the grace of God but God would rather not the death of a sinner. He wants you to come. None of us are deserving nor can work up our right to salvation. Our default mode is sin. The Apostle Paul say it best when he said in ‘the thing that i want to do , i cant seem to do, the things that I know i should not do , i find myself doing… o wretched man that i am , who will deliver me from this body of death, this sin nature. My answer is Jesus. Jesus is the deliverer the savior of the world.
The Bible says that the soul that sins will die, but wherever possible Father would want for Mercy to triumph over Judgement . Jesus came to deliver us from the curse of sin and eternal damnation.
Today he is saying again, ‘a bruised reed shall he not break nor a smoking flax shall he quench. There s hope, he is reaching out , he is extending grace , unmerited favour through his word to you.
No matter what we have done , no matter how far we have fallen , he doesn’t condemn us . His word says if our hearts condemn us , he is even greater than our hearts.
What i can share is that he is beautiful beyond description. Who can resist such beauty, love and affection that He has and wants to bestow on us and to be able to call us sons and daughters of God. What a thought , what a priveledge. Who would reject such great a gift. He gives it, not for what we have done but for what he did on the cross.
The cross and the route Jesus took at Calvary for us is the depiction of grace, love , mercy. He holds this out to those who are willing today.
I am Evangelist Linda J , If you want dont yet know the Lord but would like to received the free gift of God’s grace through Jesus Christ God’s son then say this prayer after me:
Lord Jesus,
I have read and heard this message of the free gift of God’s grace through what you did for me on the cross. I recognize that I am a sinner and I want your forgiveness for all my sins and through the gift of grace.
Please wash me from all my sins and accept me into your family.
Teach me how to love and to live right before you and how to serve from this moment onwards.
If you have said this prayer , find a bible believing church and speak to the pastors and leaders , that you have taken the prayer of salvation and are now needing your baptism.
God bless you and keep you and cause his loving face to shine upon you.
EV Linda J UK
21/6/2020