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Entrusted With Grace – Love Beyond Measure · Still, Here

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is still here.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: A quiet moment to remember what is true.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to these words from the book of Ephesians, chapter 3, verses 1 through 7.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: The world teaches us to recognize purpose by visibility.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: A larger platform appears more meaningful.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: A respected title seems to carry greater influence.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Public results are easier to measure than quiet faithfulness.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: When those standards shape our imagination,
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: ordinary life can begin to feel too small for the purposes of God.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: The small ruler says, meaningful purpose requires a title, a platform, or a visible ministry.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Paul describes his calling in a different way.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: He calls it a stewardship of grace.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Grace had been given to him.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And receiving that grace created a responsibility to notice what God was doing
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: and participate in it.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Paul did not own the message, the calling, or the power.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: He had been entrusted with something that began in God and was meant to move
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: toward other people.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: A steward does not create what has been entrusted.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: A steward remains attentive to the desire of the one who gave it.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: In the same way, grace is not a spiritual possession we store for ourselves.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: It is the life of God received within us and allowed to take form through us.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: This does not turn grace into another demand to perform.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Grace moves differently from pressure.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Pressure tells us to prove that we matter.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Grace begins with the assurance that we are already loved.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: As that assurance settles more deeply into the soul,
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: the desire to share what we have received begins to rise naturally.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: You may have been entrusted with grace through compassion,
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: relationships, abilities, and ordinary opportunities.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Even suffering may have deepened your awareness of what other people carry.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Pain does not have to become your identity.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: You do not have to call what wounded you good.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yet grace can meet you within the experience and form tenderness,
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: patience,
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: courage, or understanding that would not have grown in the same way otherwise.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: A person who has known loneliness may recognize the one standing at the edge of the room.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Someone who has received mercy may become slower to condemn.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: A person who has learned the limits of self-sufficiency may know how to offer help
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: without making another person feel weak.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Grace keeps moving.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: It may move through you the way you listen to someone who feels unseen.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: It may appear in patience with a difficult person,
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: integrity in work no one applauds, or the ability to bring calm into a tense room.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Another person may perform the same task.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yet the presence of Christ gives the work a different quality.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: The task becomes more than something completed.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: It becomes a place where another human being is treated with dignity, steadiness, and love.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: You do not need to wait for a larger audience before your life can carry grace.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: You do not need a title to notice the person in front of you.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: You do not need a public ministry to bring peace into your home.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Courage into your workplace or patient attention into a conversation.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: God may invite you into something more visible.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: He may also ask you to remain faithful in a place few people notice.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Visibility does not determine meaning.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Love does.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Your calling is not to create something impressive enough to matter.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: It is to remain sensitive to what God is already doing in and through you.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Grace has been entrusted to you because God intends to keep it moving.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Take a moment for this prayer of presence.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: God of grace, everything you have given me began in your love.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: I release the need for a title, platform, or visible proof that my life matters.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Make me attentive to the grace already moving through my gifts,
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: relationships, wounds and ordinary opportunities.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let what I have received become patience, courage, mercy and presence for someone else.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: I offer you a willing life.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: As you open your inbox, your calendar, your door, carry this prayer with you.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Grace moves through me.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: I join what God is doing.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Grace moves through me.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, stay steady, stay open, stay present.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: You are still here.