I’m praying for you. This will be an ongoing series, where I will be writing my prayers for everyone who will read these posts. My desire for you is that you would feel the love of God, that you would be encouraged, and that you would experience the power and presence of God in your life.
First there will be a scripture and then the prayer I’m praying over you.

Ephesians‬ ‭1:15-23‬ ‭ESV
“For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, I come before You thankful for everyone who will read this blog. I pray for their faith, that it might only increase. Let the love they have for you and others grow, and overflow into the world. Make them a fountain of refreshing divine love to everyone that comes into contact with them. Father of glory, I pray that You would give them the Spirit of Wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of you. Let them never be confused, but always confident in your leading. Increase their knowledge of You, and draw each person into a greater, and deeper relationship with You. Enlighten the eyes of each readers heart, so that they would know the hope that You have called them into, the hope that never disappoints. Anchor their souls in hope. Show each person the glorious inheritance you have for them, in this life and the life to come. Help them to walk in Your immeasurably great power as they believe in You and Your Word. Let Christ be magnified in every heart as He is magnified and lifted up over all. Give us a sense of the power of His name, that will cause every knee to bow, and tongue to confess Jesus is Lord. As His body, let each part of your church, abide and experience all the fullness of God. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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Love. It is the deepest desire of the human heart. All people have a need to be loved, and to love. Year after year, many people live for that next relationship where they can find true love. There is a hope that maybe if someone can be found that you love, and that loves you in return, that the cavern in your soul will be filled, and you will be complete. That is a treadmill you can never get off of. No person can complete you. The only love that can fill you is divine love. Only God can make you whole.
1 John 4:10 says, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Most people focus on their love for God, but the Holy Spirit is teaching us that our love for God is not as important as God’s love for us. No one has ever loved God the way He deserves. Not for a day, or even a minute. God doesn’t need our love. He doesn’t need anything from us. We need everything from Him. When you understand that God loves you, and He loved you first, then you can love Him. True love for God doesn’t flow from effort, but from gratitude. God has loved you more than anyone else, for longer than anyone else, and with greater passion and intensity than anyone else.

God loved you from eternity past. God loved you before time existed. God dreamed of your relationship with Him, when only He existed. You have been on God’s mind forever. You see, God is love(1 John 4:8). He is love by nature. God is a trinity. Three persons in one God. God has always had a perfect relationship and perfect love within Himself, between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Because He is love, and love is within Him, He created you in His image, to love and be loved. God created you to be loved by Him. He didn’t create you out of need, but out of overflow. God has so much overwhelming, abundant, overflowing love, that He made you to pour it out on. Your deepest purpose is not to do anything, but to simply receive His love. So be loved. Live loved. God made you to be loved, because He has so much to give. God is endless love. He can give you all of it, and still have an endless supply. So stop striving. Stop seeking. Stop trying to earn it. Stop trying to be good enough. Stop, and just let God love you.

There is nothing that can separate you from that love. God gave Jesus for you on that cross, so that you would have unhindered access to Him. In His presence is fullness of joy, and you have been brought near by the blood of Jesus. Jesus is our propitiation. That means that He is the sacrifice that payed for all our sins. All the wrath that God has for your sin was poured out on Jesus, and He satisfied it. Through Jesus there is nothing that can get in the way of your relationship with God. That word propitiation literally is “mercy seat” in the Greek. That is reminiscent of the ark of the covenant. The picture given is that all God sees when He looks at you is the blood of Jesus and His perfect righteousness. In Christ, God doesn’t see your failures or law breaking, but the perfection of Jesus, given to you by faith.
Never forget that God loves you and always has. He always will and He created you to receive His love. so rest in God’s premeditated love for you.

If you don’t know Jesus, I want to give you the opportunity to trust Him for your salvation and receive His finished work by faith. If you want to make Jesus the Lord of your life simply prayer this in your heart, as a way to put your faith in Him. Say, “ Jesus, I make you the Lord of my life. I know I’m a sinner, but I believe. I believe that You are the Son of God. I believe You died on the cross for my sins, and I believe that You rose on the third day for my justification. I ask you to save me now. I receive you by faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen”

Ashamed, broken, defective, damaged, trash, failure, reject, unloved, unlovable, worthless. Labels can be harsh. Who are you? What do you hear when you think about yourself? What do you believe about you? The answers to those questions determine your identity. Many of us have a poor identity. Our labels are painful to bear, and because of that, life is hard. But there is good news. Your identity can change. You can change. Life gets better, and so do you.

Let me tell you something personal. At this time in my life I have a great, new joy. I am resting in the fact that I am loved, and I am unashamed before God and others. It wasn’t always this way. Identity changes.

For most of my life I felt like I was unloved and rejected. Maybe because of struggles. Maybe because of circumstances. Only God knows for sure. But My whole life I believed that, deep down there was something wrong with me, inherently wrong. I was just off, different, never really fitting in, and never having many friends. Depression was at times a deep struggle, and never too far away. Through it all, I always hoped that it would get better, but there was a different voice. A voice that was always near, and always whispering in the background. That voice said things like, “ outcast, reject, failure, worthless.” The voice always reminded me that something was wrong with me, and that’s why I was different.

But God, as He always does, entered the scene. He broke through and destroyed the iron bands of depression, desolation, isolation, and negativity, that was embedded in my mind and heart. It turns out that the voice I believed for so long was a liar. That voice was not true or God. That voice was the enemy. The hater of my soul. There is one whose only mission is to steal, kill, and destroy. He had been deceiving me for years. A new voice entered the scene. A bigger one. A better one. All of a sudden, in a mighty rush, came the voice of Jesus, the lover of my soul. He took every lie captive, and revealed the clearer, true picture of who I am. The dam broke and like a flood, years of fear, doubt, and pain, were gone in an instant. Christ opened my eyes to see clearly. He showed me that my mistakes which I hated myself for, have been redeemed, and through them came opportunities for miracles. He spoke deep within me and said this, “there is nothing wrong with you, because I make all things new. You are my workmanship and I don’t make mistakes. You are no longer a crumbling shell, but a house whose builder and maker is God. You are special and valuable, because you are filled with Me. You are the place My Spirit has chosen to dwell. I love you, and I always have, even before the foundation of the world. Your mistakes have been washed away in the river of my blood. You are always close to Me, because I have brought you close. Your sins and iniquities I remember no more. You are mine, and that’s all that really matters. You are different because I made you that way. I made you special and unique, for a purpose only you can fulfill.”

I chose to listen to my Creator. Who could know me better? My fresh identity settled in my heart. I know now that I am loved and unashamed.
This story can be yours if you let it. Trust Jesus and let Him make you new too. Live loved and unashamed. Jesus heals the broken and binds up deep wounds. You may be broken, but broken doesn’t mean defective. Open your heart and listen. Jesus is speaking to you.

Greetings to everyone that will read these posts. I look forward to our journey together as we learn about, and grow in the grace of God.
This blog is called Refreshing Grace, because God’s grace, transforms you from the inside out and brings joy to your soul. Through faith, Grace( Jesus is the grace of God incarnate) brings you into the experience of the “times of refreshing” mentioned in Acts 3:19. My desire is to encourage others in the things of the Lord, and grow together in God’s grace.
To grow in grace, and be refreshed by grace, you must understand what grace is. Grace is the unmerited, undeserved favor of God. Grace is God giving you everything you don’t deserve. It has been said the grace is God’s riches at Christ’s expense. G-R-A-C-E is God’s-Riches-At-Christ’s-Expense. The grace of God has been fully demonstrated and revealed through Jesus Christ. He has done all the work that you could never do. Jesus died for you and rose again that you might be forgiven and made righteous before God(Rom.5:1). When you are in a faith relationship with Him, God sees you as perfect, holy, and righteous.
Do you want to be refreshed? Rest in this. Jesus is your perfection. He is your right standing. He is everything that you ever wanted or needed. In Him you are blessed with every spiritual blessing (Eph.1:3). You are loved. Oh so loved. He loves you more than you can imagine. God the Father loves you as much as He loves Jesus ( John 17:23). As Jesus is, so are you in this world(1 John 4:17). When God sees you, He says, This is my beloved child, in whom I am well pleased.” Jesus makes you new. That is grace. That is refreshing.