My 2012 Word Wrap-up

“Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.” ~ Colossians 4:6

2012 is almost gone and it’s time to update you on my word for the year…GRACE.  When I chose that word back in January, I had no clue what to expect when the twelve months were up.  What I can tell you is that I have grown.  Learning to extend grace to others has been very humbling and often times I found myself sticking up for those that were in the spotlight.

Think about the rise and fall and death of Whitney Houston or Joe Paterno.  The Never Beyond and Labels Lie campaigns by People of the Second Chance were wonderful ways for me to learn about and extend grace those that had fallen in the public eye.  In the end, the last post in the Never Beyond series was about looking at yourself and seeing that each of us is never beyond redemption no matter what we’ve done in our lives.

I wonder about how extending grace to those living on the fringe might have changed things with the Aurora or Newtown shooters.  How about when we extend it to those on the streets?  My eyes were opened to beautiful songs about God’s extension of grace to us.  I even had the honor of speaking about grace in my first guest post this year.

So, I offer you the word GRACE as I end 2012 and move on to a new year and a new word.  And I leave you with the words I began the year with and ask you to extend a little grace this year because each of us is never beyond redemption.

God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.  Ephesians 2:8-9

The Necessity of…

If any should complain that humanity, under the fall, is too weak and helpless to obey these high commands of God, the reply is in order that, through the atonement of Christ, man is enabled to obey. The Atonement is God’s Enabling Act. That which God works in us, in regeneration and through the agency of the Holy Spirit, bestows enabling grace sufficient for all that is required of us, under the Atonement. This grace is furnished without measure, in answer to prayer. So that, while God commands, He, at the same time, stands pledged to give us all necessary strength of will and grace of soul to meet His demands. This being true, man is without excuse for his disobedience and eminently censurable for refusing, or failing, to secure requisite grace, whereby he may serve the Lord with reverence, and with godly fear.

There is one important consideration those who declare it to be impossible to keep God’s commandments strangely overlook, and that is the vital truth, which declares that through prayer and faith, man’s nature is changed, and made partaker of the Divine nature; that there is taken out of him all reluctance to obey God, and that his natural inability to keep God’s commandments, growing out of his fallen and helpless state, is gloriously removed.  ~E. M. Bounds, “The Necessity of Prayer“

I’m One of the “Only A Breath” June Featured Sponsors!

Please click on the “Only A Breath” picture above to read about all of the June Featured Sponsors on Melanie’s blog.  I met Melanie when she offered to make “One Word 2012” icons for the readers.  She gracious offered to do it for free.  She designed the “Grace” button on my sidebar.

Please visit Melanie and consider reading her blog regularly.  She has a beautiful and generous heart.  She is living her word this year “Give” by her highlighting her readers’ blogs on her own.  She even made me my own blog icon. Kewl!

I wanted to share the blessing I received with you, my friends.  Thank you for reading my words.  I’m humbled.