I experienced the grace of God today. I've read. I've learned. I've bloomed. I've grown. But today I experienced the living grace of God in the most tangible way.
I realized that it is the act of committing sin that causes me to hate. It's not what others do to me so much as what I do myself that causes me to hate, that causes me to anger, that causes me to despair. When I commit sin, I know, in the depths of my being, that I do not have a right to the tree of life. These words were running through my head, "I don't have a right to the tree of Life", and I was filled with torrid bitterness and anguish, hopelessness, utter weakness and futility. Every thought that is mine, every reasoning that is mine seeks to justify sin, leads me to commit sin by justifying sin. I can not rely on myself for anything. I am wholly a fool, and every way of my own is a lie.
Today this came alive in my life.
I experienced how inherent sin is. It is a need of the flesh, as strong as the need for food and for water and for air. Corrupt flesh needs corruption to feed itself. How can I ever overcome such a strong need of the flesh? It betrays me, seeming to be what I need to survive. Only by the grace of God! I have no right to Life, but our compassionate Savior delights in mercy, and He gives Life to me.
Ellen White in her visions did not breathe. Moses on the holy mountain did not eat or drink for forty days. God can sustain our lives without our fleshy needs for life, without corruption, without appetite, without carnal necessity. God can and will keep us alive apart from the flesh, while in the flesh.
Jesus fasted for forty days. He did not eat. This is not the same as Moses on the mountain. Moses was on the holy mountain with God. Jesus was in the desert with Satan. I've heard that forty days is the death point for human beings going without food. Fasting for this long, one will lose their appetite, and not crave food, but when it comes to forty days, they will become hungry again. This is a sign that they are on death's doorstep. They have reached the ending of life. Jesus denyed His flesh to the point of death, and at the same time overcame the enemy's temptations, wholly relying on the word of God. The Word relying on the word, denying the flesh. What a glorious example. We do need to be willing to die, and to trust in God. Not just be willing to 'die to self', but to die.
It's really funny how I know I am dying, yet still cling to the known deceptions of carnal existence that bring me eternal death. I know that eternal life requires me to be willing to die, yet this death I resist. It's all upside down.
Only by the grace of God can I be here;
Only by the grace of God can I still be breathing the air;
Only by the grace of God can I be given the chance to know Him;
For my just sentence is death;
Yet He dilights in mercy, and teaches me.
Does anything else matter compared to this?