Healing Grace Psalms 147:3

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1 Page 1 of 10 Healing Grace Psalms 147:3 One of the things I've learned in my life is that nobody sails through life without problems. We all have them. We all have hurts and emotional scars that nobody can see. One of the deepest causes of those hurts is rejection. We all face it at different times and in different ways. It may have been rejection from a parent, a child, a spouse, a sibling or a friend. It may have happened in the past or it may be as recent as today. You may be hurting today and in need of healing. I want you to know that God s grace is more than enough to heal all the wounds of your life and mine. *The Bible says, He (God) heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." (Psalms 147:3 NIV) You may be thinking, "That's great! I need that healing." But how does God heal the wounds of my life? God heals us by changing the way we think. He changes the way we see God and He changes the way we see ourselves. *The Bible says in Romans 12:2, Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. NLT If you want the hurts in your heart to be healed, and if you want your life to be transformed, you must let God s grace

2 Page 2 of 10 change the way you think and heal your mind and remove the evil from your heart. The Bible says, "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." (Pr 23:7 KJV paraphrased) Our beliefs determine our behaviors. The way you think determines the course of your life. Distorted thinking results in distorted living. ILL. Remember when they used to have those fun houses filled with mirrors. The mirrors were distorted and when you looked at yourself in them, they gave you a distorted picture of yourself. You were bigger, skinnier, or taller. Parts of your body would be real big and other parts real small. When you see yourself in a distorted mirror, you see a distorted image of yourself. Growing up, some of us had adults around us that were like warped mirrors. They gave us a distorted view of ourselves. When we are children, we tend to accept whatever adults say about us as the truth. If they said things like, "You're never going to amount to anything, or you're stupid, or you can't do anything right, or nobody loves you, you tended to believe it. It is not only their words, but their actions that communicate hurtful ideas. We file all those ideas away in our mind and they hurt us deeply. You may still be acting on those wrong ideas and feeling the pain of those lies. I want you to see how God changes our mind and helps us to see ourselves as He sees us. When you see yourself as God sees you through His grace and love, you will never want to go back to those warped mirrors again. God's view of you is the

3 Page 3 of 10 true view of who you are. The God of the Bible always reveals the truth. There are four things that God says about you that are true because of His grace. If you receive His grace and embrace these truths about yourself, it will change the way you think about yourself, begin to heal the wounds of the past, and transform your life. Let s pray If you have received the saving grace of God through Jesus Christ, this is what God says about you. TS Because of God's grace *1. I AM ACCEPTED BY GOD. That's a pretty good place to start because most of us spend our entire lives trying to be accepted by others. We want to be accepted by our parents, by our peers, by our enemies, and even by total strangers. ILL You may have grown up with an unpleasable parent. No matter what you did, it was never good enough. If you cleaned a table, it was not done right. If you cut the grass, you cut it too short. If you got a B, they wanted an A and when you got an A, there was no praise. No matter what you did, you could not get the approval and the acceptance that you craved. Some adults are still driven by the desire to gain their parent's approval that they never gained as a child. Most of us do not realize that the drive to be accepted is behind many of the things we do in life. Your desire to be

4 Page 4 of 10 accepted influences the way you dress, the kind of car you drive, the kind of house you live in, the career you choose, and many other things. People will do the craziest things in order to be accepted. ILL Remember as a kid when you were dared to do something. Jump off a bridge over a river or swim across the lake. It was stupid, but you did it anyway. Why? You wanted their approval. You wanted to be accepted. Some people think, If I could just be perfect, then everybody would love me. Then everybody would accept me. I'm sorry to tell, but that won't work either. Even if you were perfect, people are going to reject you. The Bible tells us that Jesus was perfect, and yet He was despised and rejected. The issue of our acceptance is settled once and for all when we receive Jesus as our Savior. He accepts you and me completely because of His grace. *Romans 15:7 Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, NIV Notice there is no condition. It doesn't say, "Christ will accept you if you go to church every week or if you live a perfect life." It's unconditional because it's based on God's grace not your performance. Most of you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior. But have you ever realized that God has accepted you? God has accepted you just as you are without any conditions on it because of His grace.

5 Page 5 of 10 If God accepts you, but someone else doesn t, then who has the problem. It's not you. *Look at Psalms 27:10 Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me. NIV TS Because of God's grace I AM ACCEPTED BY GOD and *2. I AM VALUED BY GOD. I am valuable because of God s grace. How much do you think you're worth? I'm not talking about your financial worth. I'm talking about your self-worth. Your value has no relationship to your finances or what you own. *Jesus said, a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." (Luke 12:15 NIV) You may say, "I don't know what I am worth. How do you judge the value of a person?" How do you judge the value of anything? There is one way to determine the value of anything. How much is someone willing to pay for it? ILL How much is your house worth? You may think it is worth $200,000. But if all you can sell it for is $150,000, guess what it's worth? $150,000. It s worth depends upon what someone is willing to pay for it. Do you know how much God paid for you? *Look at 1 Peter 1:18 For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. 19 It was

6 Page 6 of 10 the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. NLT The greatest ransom ever paid was when Jesus Christ paid for your sins and mine. You were bought with the most precious price imaginable. God gave His own son in exchange for you. Christ gave his life for you. That means that you are of infinite worth to God. That's how valuable you are. If you want to know your value, look at the cross. Look at Jesus on the cross with his outstretched hands, "This is how valuable you are." This is how much you matter to Me. This is how much you are worth. When people say, "You're worthless. They're dead wrong. Those are just lies. God says you are so valuable I gave my Son for you. *In Isaiah 43:4 God says, You are precious to me. (NLT) TS Because of God's grace I AM ACCEPTED BY GOD, VALUED BY GOD, and *3. I AM LOVED BY GOD. There is one feeling that is sure to fill your heart when you are rejected. You are going to feel unloved and unlovable. Thoughts going through your mind like, does anyone love me? Will anyone ever love me? Am I unlovable? ILL When somebody has rejected you -- a girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, wife, or a parent, you don't feel lovable. But what you are thinking is a lie.

7 Page 7 of 10 *God says in Isaiah 54:10 Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken NIV TS Now God's love is very different from human love. *(1.) God's love is consistent. It's never going to end. God is not fickle. God does not change His mind. Most of us have experienced inconsistent love because we live with human beings. ILL. One person said, "Growing up, from day to day, I never knew whether I'd be hugged or slugged. It depended on the mood that my mom was in." We grow up with inconsistent love. Inconsistent love produces insecure children. God says, "My love is never going to end for you." *(2.) God's love is unconditional. It's not based on performance. It's not based on you measuring up. As human beings, we try to give unconditional love to other people, to our children, to our spouses. But we can't do it all the time because we're imperfect. We receive conditional love from the people around us and we give conditional love to others. When you say, "I love you if you love me" that's conditional love. That is why people get divorced. When people live together instead of getting married, that s conditional love. "I love you because you make me feel good. When that stops, it s over. "I love you because you look good. When you don t look good, I am done loving you. That's conditional love. When

8 Page 8 of 10 someone loves you because you're talented. What happens tomorrow if they meet somebody who's more talented? That's conditional love. But God says to you, "I love you period! No conditions. No qualifiers. *God says, I have loved you with an everlasting love; (Jeremiah 31:3 NIV) You don't ever have to wonder if God is going to love you tomorrow? You don't ever have to wonder did I pray enough, read my Bible enough, did I do enough good things? Even when you sin, God still loves you. God s love is not conditional upon your performance. That's grace. TS BECAUSE OF GOD'S GRACE I AM ACCEPTED BY GOD, VALUED BY GOD, LOVED BY GOD AND *4. I AM FORGIVEN BY GOD. That's a good one because I need that one a lot. I blow it and make mistakes all the time. I need forgiveness for my sins. How about you? Ill Did you hear about the guy who was going up to his cabin in the mountains. On the way, he ran out of gas. He got out of his car on the side of the mountain to go get gas and he forgot to put it in park so the car rolled off the cliff. So he started walking up the mountain road to his cabin. On the way, a bad storm came up with pouring rain and wind. He got completely soaked and was shivering in the rain and wind. He was feeling so bad but he finally saw his cabin and just as he got to the cabin lightning struck it and it caught on fire and

9 Page 9 of 10 burned to the ground. He began to cry out, "Why me, God? Why me?" And all of a sudden he hears this voice from heaven, "Because some people just tick me off!" Now I tell you that joke because some people really feel that way about God. They think God is out to get them. Everything that goes wrong in their life they attribute to God. God is not like that! He does not enjoy seeing you suffer. He is not out to get you. He wants to forgive you and to keep you from harm and to bless you. *Isaiah 43:25 I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more. NIV God wants to forgive you. God doesn't hold a grudges. You receive God s complete forgiveness when you ask Christ to be your Savior. That is grace. *Ephesians 1:4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. 6 So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. NLT If you belong to God s Son, Jesus Christ, you are completely forgiven. How does God see you? Holy and without fault If you do not belong to Jesus, now is the time to receive him as your Savior and God.

10 Page 10 of 10 If you reject Jesus, you reject the grace of God and there is no hope for the one that does that. Accept what Jesus Christ did for you on the cross and make him your God and you will be completely forgiven. Jesus paid for all our sins on the cross. If Jesus took your punishment, you don't have to worry about God punishing you. Conclusion: BECAUSE OF GOD'S GRACE I AM ACCEPTED BY GOD, VALUED BY GOD, LOVED BY GOD, AND FORGIVEN BY GOD. If you receive the grace of God through Jesus and embrace these four truths about yourself, it will begin to heal the wounds of the past, and transform your life! I hope you will take that outline and read those words over and over out loud to yourself and let them sink deep into your thoughts and your heart. You see, God wants to heal the wounds of your life by changing the way you think. He wants to change the way we see God and the way you see yourself all by his grace. Pray