JCA Grad Night Testimony: Grace

Grace is when we are given something that we don’t deserve

What got me thinking about God’s grace in my life was the process of praying and seeking out God’s will in my life. The thing with Christian life is that we think we’ve done something for God and that we have some right to ask God to give us His best. The truth is, we as sinners have no right to ask God for His love and blessing!
When God gives us His best in our lives it is because He loves us so so much. And that’s grace.

I didn't deserve alot my college years, not the way I was going about things anyway. Of the many things I didn't deserve, two things stand out:

JCA
Other people were praying for a good Christian community, they were searching hungering after more, but not me. I was content at another church although I wasn’t being stretched, I was at least comfortable.

I didn’t deserve JCA, but God graciously provided pastor Matt who prayed a lot for a bunch of clueless sophomores, who are now graduating and want to continue to serve God
God graciously provided examples of people who would lay down their lives, take up the cross to follow Christ daily. These were the grads from Penn who came to Atlanta without jobs because in faith they knew that God wanted them to plant a church. Through them God showed me what a radical life for Christ looked like, and what choices one sometimes had to make to live for Him.
God graciously provided two family group servants, Julia and Pastor Fred, who taught me more through the things that didn’t say than through the things that they did say. They taught me through their actions, the way the lived their lives and the way the loved our family group. They taught so that I would know how to love people 2 years later in my own family group.

JCA was something that I didn’t deserve, but that God chose to bless me with.

Friends
I was content with the friends I had from back home in Singapore. In fact, for most of freshman year, I tried desperately to hang on to those relationships at the expense of relationships with people here. I wasn’t looking for more friends, I just wanted to keep my old ones.

But God graciously gave a group of friends with whom I could share and pray with, from freshman year, and who are here in this very room. They were persistent in including me in the things they did, despite my reluctance. God used these friends to support, encourage, stretch and love me, when I wasn’t loving them.

And then while serving at JCA, God graciously provided people who encourage, push and pray for me to keep serving God. I call them my running mates, my pacing partners. These peers, the rest of the graduating seniors, have inspired, challenged and taught me what it means for an upper classmen to love the underclassmen. These are the friends with whom I have shared the ups and downs of ministry. These are the people placed in my life because God knows we can’t do ministry alone.


As you even think about your past year, regardless of what stage in life you’re at, when you see God’s goodness and realize that you don’t deserve any of it -- That’s grace. And I’ve learnt that the correct response to grace is, Romans 12:1: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.”

And then God just gives us His best because He is so full of grace.