Grace +

**Sit quietly, eyes closed and in silence for one minute before reading.**

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do no submit again to a yoke of slavery.” The Apostle Paul, The Bible

    Anything but grace alone is grace +. Grace plus ____. We live our lives under grace and add laws to ensure us of our spirituality and spiritual state before God. For some reason we are drawn to working for something rather than receiving something. We are wired to believe that what you put in you get out. One of the things that Jesus Christ does when we trust Him is that He changes this hard-wiring. Because of Christ we stand on grace not on works. 

    Yet … we need help with the habit. We need help being transformed and moved out of this daily habit that our hearts, minds and bodies know as natural. We have been in slavery and Christ is calling us to freedom. It takes adjustment and the more we follow Him, the more it gets adjusted.

    Live into grace, into freedom and into the transformation that God promises.

**Sit again in silence for as long as is available to you.**

Agreements

**Sit quietly for one minute before beginning to read.**
    “What agreements have you made?” My spiritual director asked me this a couple months ago as I was sharing with her from my heart. She was essentially asking me what agreements have I made with lies. What in my life have I agreed is a true statement that is actually very far from the truth?
    We have all made agreements with things that are untrue in our lives. Someone in our past said something and it has haunted us and led us ever since. We have bought into a lie about our identity and worth as we depend on others evaluations to inform us. We have believed and lived with things like, “You are just like your father” or “Who would want to marry you looking like that?” or “You are so stupid”. Fill in the blank your poisonous phrase of choice.
    These words are a form of slavery and they are not built on the promises of God, they are built on lies yet we allow them to direct us, guide us – we have made an agreement with them. There are truths throughout Scripture of our true identity and worth. They are based in the promises of God through Christ. Christ speaks truth into our hearts and minds and we are transformed to believe true rather than lies.
    What agreements have you made? What truth can you replace them with? In what areas of thought do you need transformation? Talk to God, ask Him.

If you have longer than two minutes, Read Galatians 4-5:1 about the freedom you have in Christ.

**Sit again for as long as is available to you.**