If God puts it on your heart to regularly support Unshackled Life Ministries, here is what I'd love and need. Pray for the ministry, its direction and effectiveness. Pray for me and my wife as we give of ourselves and our time. Pray regularly and often, please. I would much rather have faithful prayer support than funding. Second only to prayer support is the need for people to help get what God has given Unshackled Life into the hands of those who may need to read or hear it. Shares and tweets and forwarded emails are more valuable than gold. I do have a deep desire to be a grace partner and to have those who are reading this become grace partners. But that, to me, has nothing to do with supporting this or any other ministry. It's all about partnering with grace, and that is something we all need to do.
I'm not telling anyone not to support ministries. There are other ministries Leah and I support through prayer and the giving of time, and yes, even the giving of money. But that is not about grace, except the grace that is on us that enables us to give, that gives us the desire to give, and gives us the unselfishness and courage to obey when God tells us to give. Giving is about grace for me, because it is not my natural, old man, selfish instinct. But I don't give of my time, services and money, to undeserving organizations and ministries. To the guy on the street, sure, but not to organizations. With those I require some accountability and transparency with how they use what is given, and I need to have a similar heart and desire to reach their target. What I mean by that is I will support a woman's shelter, as long as they are really helping women and children in need, while I will refuse to give to a charity whose board is all making millions every year from the contributions that should be going toward the need they claim to be raising money from. And I won't be supporting making Pluto a planet once again with my limited time and resources because I don't care and there are greater needs within ten miles from my door. And I will give to whomever and whatever God tells me to. One is trying to be wise and responsible. If I have an hour or a dollar to give, I want to do all I can to make sure that as much of old George and my time (our most valuable and irreplaceable resource) is going to meet a need that I believe in and have a heart to fill. I can't run a shelter, but I can help someone who can. The other is about my walk and obedience to Daddy. Neither of those is about giving grace to the organization or ministry.
So, if it's not about all that, what does it mean to be a grace partner, and why do we need to become one? Well, the simple definition of a grace partner would be someone who partners with grace, right? That makes sense. And that's what we need to do. We need to cooperate with the work of grace in and through us. I believe that it is part of humility, to understand that we are no longer independent workers, thinkers or beings. We are under the authority and control of the Spirit. He is giving us the power to walk free and to serve, and He is the one who guides and directs the way and the when of not only our service but of all our actions and reactions, when we are in the right submitted spirit anyway.
God decided to accomplish His work in and through us by grace. So, in a sense, grace is the supervisor that oversees and directs and provides all that is necessary for us to be and do and become what Daddy determined. A partner is a person who takes part in an undertaking with another, and there are three basic types of partners. I'm not talking about business, life/romance, etc. I'm thinking about type more in regards to silent, equal and controlling.
Before we can partner well with grace, we need to understand what kind of partnership we'll be dealing with. Many seem to want and try to enter into a silent partnership with grace. The desire is for grace to give us all we need, from forgiveness and salvation to provisions for wants and needs, in order to enable us to go about the rest of our earthly life doing whatever it is we want to do. It's our life and grace is seen as the magic genie in the bottle that gives us what we want and provides escape from the consequences of our selfishness. And allow me to be perfectly clear, grace will never, ever enter into that partnership with me, you or anyone else.
Now, equal partnerships are a possibility in a lot of situations, but, as with the previous, not with grace. It would be better for us to try this route over attempting to make grace a silent partner though. At least with an equal partnership, the partner would have to be consulted and have a say before a decision is made and an action taken. So, before we could do something, act or react or choose the direction we are going to go we would have a discussion with grace about it. The problem is that we are not co-rulers with God. He is Daddy and we are the child. We do not have equal control of our life and equal say any more than my grandson has equal control with his daddy about how his life is run. They don't sit around and discuss the pros and cons of bedtime and baths or if Baiden will go to school or stay home and watch TV.
There is only one partnership in which grace is offered. Grace will be given freely to any and all who wish it, but it is only available as a controlling partner. It's not I need to discuss the options with grace before we decide what to do. It's let me check with grace to see what I'm going to do. Before I do this or that, before I react or take action, what is the guidance of grace telling me to do? How can I best serve grace as a person who is in submission to the control agreed to at the beginning of the relationship with Daddy, the One who is above me and all else, including the hows and whys of grace, and how can I best represent the nature and interests of grace in this situation?
Actually, an equal partnership is the only one that will not work. Because we can have a silent partnership with grace as long as we remember that it is us and not grace who is to be a silent partner, Grace exists to be an outpouring of God's love to those who do not deserve that love, even to God's very enemies, to be a channel of God's power so that God's children can love, serve and live, and to be an instrument of God's kindness towards humanity and relationship restoration. That is grace's purpose and place, and we can be a partner in that, a part of that purpose, as a silent partner who gives all that we have to give for grace to do whatever Daddy determines grace should do.
We give our heart and life and all that go with them to Daddy to do with them, by and through grace, what He wills, and live controlled and directed and empowered by grace to be in submission to the Spirit, and the dividends of that partnership are relationship with Daddy, freedom and a life worth living, purpose, contentment, the ability to love God and love others, transformation into the likeness of Jesus, and more. There is no end to the benefit of belonging to Daddy and letting grace empower and determine the direction, actions and reactions of our life. Today and every day, let us partner with grace, let us live life as a grace partner, walking freely in love to be of service to Daddy and others. But let us remember always that we are the silent partner and grace, as the way Daddy has chosen to extend Himself and express Himself to,in and through us, is always the controlling partner.
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