About fizzy musings

Simply put, this blog is my outlet for sharing my thoughts and reflections during personal Bible study time, but hopefully in a format that gets the reader thinking about the Bible (rather than me giving all the answers!).

I have been leading small group Bible studies for teenagers for over a year now, and I love sharing what I’ve learnt with these young people. However, the key is to get them talking and discussing and reading the Bible for themselves - I don’t want to hand it to them on a plate and have them mindlessly recite the information!

Like all people, I am a work in progress. I find that the Bible has been the key to helping me develop and improve in every area of my life - as a wife, mother, woman, human, student, family member, friend - and, of course, as a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I am not interested in religion. Surprised? Religion is about rituals, rules, and earning your good standing with God. Relationship with God through Jesus, with the indwelling and infilling of the Holy Spirit, is a life set free from darkness. Saved by Jesus, I don’t have to earn my way to God.

That’s this concept of grace. You might have heard Christians talking about “amazing grace.” What is that, exactly? Simply stated, grace is two things (to me, at least, sorry if I missed something!):

1- the undeserved, unearned forgiveness of God. All it takes is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, to believe that He died in your place, and to turn around (”repent”) and choose to follow Him. Grace is a free gift!

2 - the strength to get things right. Yes, forgiveness is free, but God wants our lives to reflect Him. When we are saved, the Holy Spirit lives inside us, connecting us to God, connecting us to Him, helping us to hear His voice. As we grow in maturity in our Christian life, following God’s ways become more natural to us. We voluntarily submit to God so that we can live life to the fullest. And, if we make a mistake - and who doesn’t make mistakes at times?! - grace allows us to get back up again and keep living life the way God has intended.

With these things in mind, I hope that my Bible studies and reflections will help you to grow deeper in your relationship with God. No matter where we stand with God, we can alway grow closer to Him. Now that is some exciting news!

 

This is an excerpt from the Bible, Ephesians 2:1-10 (TNIV).

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions–it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

(Last updated Thursday 11 October 2007.)