A Room Called Grace by Debra Courtney

Amelia Grace Photography

I spent a great amount of time in the “Room of Good Intentions”. I described my sin as guilt and others who sinned against me as hurt. I developed at a very early age of what mask(s) to put on according to the circumstances/manipulations in response to surviving self-preservation.  I’d say the “High Cost of a Two-Faced Life” fit me to a T.          

“Room Called Grace”

In the past I supplied myself a lot of self-effort and a lot of jumping through hoops and juggling manipulation for many, many years. Finally I ran out of strength, ability, and breath, and I said, “God, if anything good is to come out of my life, you will have to do it.  I’ve tried. I can’t. I’m so tired. Please God, you will have to give me the life I am dreaming of.  I can’t keep doing this anymore. Help me. You must make it happen or I’m doomed.”  Then I turned the doorknob and walked into a room where I noticed that trusting God pleased him.  Also, my faith pleases Him, not my tears, but my faith. My faith moves mountains not my pity parties.  Knowing this encouraged me and strengthened me, and lets me know that God is pleased with me.

In Oswald Chambers, “My Utmost For His Highest”, on February 16 in his book says, “God does not give us overcoming life - He gives us life as we overcome.”  God paid a very precious and infinite price by sending His son to this earth on my behalf, to give me a new identity in Him.  I have every blessing that Deuteronomy 28 says I have.  I am who God says I am, and we work on my sin together. God knows my DNA, and he knows that I am in Christ and Christ is in me. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so!

“I Know the Plans I have for You”

Most of my life I had a plan. Plan A, B, C, and D if I needed it.  Now my plan is, I do the trusting and praying and let God do the worrying.  It’s that simple.  Now I call out to God and say “Hey, you got a problem.”  God's realm of grace resolves my sin issues.  I love this freedom so much because it provides me with truth, acceptance, healing, safety, perspective, and power that I did not know before.  Grace keeps me focused to trust God to handle my sin, sin behavior that’s in unbelievers that I live and work with, circumstances and issues that I deal with daily.

When I trust God, I live by this value: The godly are those who trust God with themselves. I can be exactly who I am, with all my issues and problems and unresolved stuff, and still fully experience grace, love, and acceptance.  This is a great feeling!

He designed me to be all that he has called me to be.  He stirs up my spirit and I love the fact that he handed me my ticket of destiny with my name on it, and smiles, and whispered into my ear, “you have no idea how long I’ve waited to hand this to you. Have a blast! I’ve already seen what you get to do.  It’s better than you could have dreamed.  Now hurry up a whole lot of folks’  waiting for you to walk in your destiny and into their lives.”  I still stumble around, but that’s what the Room of Grace is all about. It’s where I am protected by God grace for me.  For God’s grace is perfected in my imperfection. 

Thank You God for your AMAZING GRACE!

***To hear and learn more about "The Room of Grace," "The Room of Good Intentions," and "The ticket of destiny," please visit www.TrueFaced.com 

Debra’s life goal is to inspire and motivate women globally to become all they have been created and designed to be by using the guiding principles of their Creator’s word in gaining wisdom, understanding their designed-given personality identities & create their purpose! 

"Learning to Lead Others to the Room of Grace" by John Lynch @Truefaced

With Permission from the author, we are honored to pass along this post by John Lynch, Co-Leader of Truefaced 

*Original Post titled "The Note" can be found here.

Learning to Lead Others to the Room of Grace

“There are no together people, only those who dress better”, or as Bruce says, “…only those with brighter teeth.” Everyone needs grace all the time. Everyone needs to live out of their new identity all the time. No exceptions. There are no other types of people. But, there are different applications from hearing the message of grace, depending upon our backgrounds, exposure and upbringing.

When we speak on college campuses, after the messages, some students will always hang back, waiting until almost everyone else has left. They will then, unsuccessfully, try to get out  words, through deep sighs and sobbing. They have either never heard these truths or they are, for the first time, hearing life they way they’ve dreamt it could be and the opposite of what they’ve experienced.

But sometimes, students from really healthy, grace-filled homes encounter a message they’ve seen modeled most of their lives. Their responses are often quite different. One of those students wrote me a note last week:

“Mr. Lynch, (I like this kid)
I was raised in a healthy grace filled home. I have some of the most amazing parents on the planet, but I didn’t realize that until I began learning of the brokenness of the souls around me…I have been given the tools required to heal after getting hurt. During high-school, I knew several people who were “emotional.” I knew that there wasn’t anything wrong with emotion, but I knew that there was something wrong with their emotion. Then here at college, I learned that many of them were simply trying to play a broken instrument without the full understanding what the music sounds like from an instrument that is in complete working order.

This brings me to where I was sitting at lunch, listening to your discussion. The whole time I was thinking about my roommate. The guy doesn’t know who God is. He doesn’t know what a Christian is. He thinks he does. He was raised in the church. I don’t have to tell you what he thinks of the church because you are already aware of how ignorant and self-righteous we make ourselves look.

I want my roommate to know Christ. I want him to know who God is. With my background, it’s hard for me to articulate grace because it’s something that was instilled and not taught. Sitting and listening to you articulate grace has helped me a great deal. I have been able to relate grace to my roommate through lifestyle, but I haven’t felt capable of explaining it to him, and your talk has helped me to order some thoughts in my head.

…I’m not there yet. It’s going to take me a long time to deliver this message fully to my roommate. I’m not just going to sit down with him and explain it in an hour and then have him completely turn his life around during a whirlwind of emotion and epiphany. It’s a lesson he’s going to learn slowly and I have to “teach” it day-by-day. I would appreciate your prayer as I make my way through this last semester with him, before I graduate in May.

Thank you.”

We never get “past” needing to hear the message of grace and identity for ourselves. But sometimes, we get to see the message through the eyes of others and their desperate need for these truths. In fact, once experienced it’s the first response we often have: “Everyone I know needs this! I must begin to learn to not just bask in having experienced it, I must learn how to articulate this way of life.” Those are the words of someone entering a pretty incredible journey of watching God release the captives.

John Lynch

As many of you know, John Lynch's voice is one of the strongest and most trusted in my life when it comes to the message of the Gospel, Grace, Identity and Living Out of Who God Says I Am. I am so humbled that he allows us to share his voice and his words with you, our awesome C4C Family! 

Make sure to check out www.Truefaced.com and his other books, see picture to the left for those. 

(And, forgive my shameless plug...it just means so much to have his approval and endorsement of my work.)

With Love,

Shelley