I was dead...but now I live!

I want to share with you all a thought that has continually come to my mind in recent weeks as I look toward to heading to Japan. I can't fulfill this assignment in Utsunomiya. I'm not creative enough to do it. I'm not attractive enough or smart enough either. I have no discernible skills. Despite my best intentions, on a daily basis I fall far short of being the person whom God desires that I be. I'm still bent on fulfilling the desires of my heart rather than the desires of my Heavenly Father. I'm constantly reminded that there is nothing good within me in and of myself.

Based on that I consider it no small thing that Christ sacrificed himself upon the cross for me. What would drive the God of this world to give up his Son to pay for my mistakes, my shortcomings, my failures? It is this amazing grace and amazing love that I'll never fully understand.

I cherish the song by Casting Crowns titled "And Now My Lifesong Sings." The lyrics go:

I once was lost, but now I’m found
I once was lost, but now I’m found
So far away, but I’m home now
I once was lost, but now I’m found
And now my lifesong sings

I once was blind, but now I see
I once was blind, but now I see
I don’t know how, but when He touched me
I once was blind, but now I see

And now my lifesong sings
And now my lifesong sings
And now my lifesong sings

I once was dead, but now I live
I once was dead, but now I live
Now my life to You I give
Now my life to You I give
Now my life to You I give

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Let my lifesong sing to You

It's the last verse that gets me every time I listen to the song! "I once was dead, but now I live!" Without Christ in my life I would be as good as dead. In fact, that's exactly what I once was. But because of what He did and because of who He is, it is now that I truly live. All that is good and decent in me is because of He who lives within me.

As I head to Japan next week I am aware that if I go in my own wisdom and strength and with my own agenda and laid out plans, then my life will resemble more of that dead man that I once was rather than the new life that I now live in Christ Jesus. Pray that I'll be wholly dependent upon God in the coming weeks, months, and years, and that I'll live out that new life I have in Christ in a way that brings the utmost glory to God.

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ..."--Ephesians 2:4-5