Ephesians 2:8-9 For by Grace have you been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift from God, not of works, that on one could boast.

Right? Grace saves us from the judgement of sin. so if i sin today i will not have to pay the penalty for that sin, Christ covered it by his blood on the cross, once and for all. yes.
you can not follow torah (the teachings) and be saved. the law does not save you from sins.
Gods
Resources
At
Christs
Expense
saves us from having to pay the penalty for our sins.
But,

James 2:14 What good is it, my brothers, if a man says he has faith, but has not works? Can faith save him? Even so,faith, if it has not works, is dead in itself.

Most people in the church today will tell me that they do not have to live Torah, (works) because they are under Grace. Gods grace covers all sins. Gods grace saves me from the penalty of my sin. yes. In the OT if you broke Gods law you were punished right then.
ok, so what is "sin"? Sin by definition is 'missing the mark" missing the mark, means you are aiming at the bulls eye, and miss the mark. Sin then, is you are trying to please God and miss the mark. So how as a unbeliever do you miss the mark if you are not aiming at it?  So what an unbeliever does is replace God with his own god. His own way of doing things, His own law.  So really, what is happening is the unbeliever has FAITH that God is the one true God and has FAITH that God will forgive the error of his thinking and his lifestyle and apply grace to his life so that he will no longer sin before God.   so if you have GRACE applied to your life, you have Gods resources at Christs expense, do you continue to live as you did before the grace was applied? Do you continue on the path you were on, or you do you use Gods resources to live as God commands us to live?

God's grace gives you the jersey of his team. God signs a contract with you and gives you his playbook and says welcome to MY team.  You have been chosen to play on Gods team! So it comes  time that God calls you onto the field to make a play, according to his play book you are to run a crossing pattern, go five yards and then run to the middle of the field so you can catch the ball and run with it.  You get on the line of scrimmage and when the ball is hiked, you take off towards the end zone. The play is blown, you get back to the huddle, and the quarterback asks you what happened, and you say, i brought my own playbook. it works for me.  I have a signed contract that allows me on this team, but I don't need to follow your playbook, its old and outdated.  After a down or two, you will find yourself on the bench, not having any benefit of playing on the field. and after the game you will find yourself in the owners box. the owner of the playbook says to you, I wrote this playbook from scratch. i know it works, it helps the team win and it is flawless. You are going to tell the owner of the playbook that you know better? His playbook is no longer valid because it is a new era? Then my friend, you just broke your contract with your team. If you wont follow the playbook, you can not be a part of the team. 

Gods blessings on our life are not just  because we have grace. We have Gods blessings on our life because we follow Gods teachings that he gave us to live a life pleasing to him. Gods commands are not just a list of do's and don'ts they are they way to live to be blessed by God in all of our life. If I marry someone, and he asks me to not wear the color red because it was offensive to him, and yet I  continue to wear red, am i honoring and respecting my spouse? no. God has told us to follow his teachings and his covenant so that He may bless us. When we choose to not honor his teachings and his covenant and say his covenant was done away with is that honoring to God? Is that living a life that God would have us live so he can bless us? How can God bless us if we deliberately choose to not obey his teachings? If we tell the Creator of the universe that His ways are no longer valid, how can we expect to be blessed by him in our lives? How can we have Gods' resources working in our lives? His teachings are His ways. His ways are higher than our ways, His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. Our thoughts should be on ways to honor and respect God as the authority in our life and in our hearts.

Yes church, Gods grace saves us from the penalty of our sins, but Gods teaching show us how to how to have a civil society and to honor and respect our God  in all that we do.

Cold mornings and sunshine

I m enjoying my day off of work, sitting on my front porch feeling the bright morning sun. I m starting a new chapter in my life.  New location, new job. The old chapter was getting too heavy and tight.  here's to a new week, a new chapter,  a new perspective.

Abusive people

Someone I have known for over 2 years now, has been in a very physically abusive relationship since I have known her. She has missed work more often than I can count because of bruises,  court dates for the restraining order, being in hiding for fear of her life,  court dates to get his baby daddy rights taken away, and yet...... guess who is still living with her, beating her and babysitting while she tries to hold a full time job...... and yet, she. Complains daily that her life sucks.... gee I wonder why?  Hlw are we as coworkers supposed to help cover her shifts, go over and beyond our normal working schedule to accommodate her stupid choices in life?   I am tired of listening to her gripe when she chooses to stay with this moron! She has other family to stay with, she is not 'stuck' with this pos.... im just done trying to help her.... she is not making a mistake right now, she is making a decision. .......

Robin

Robin willams died today from suicide.  It does not seem right that someone that is soooo funny should end his own life. That would be like carol burnett, tim Conway,  drew cary committing suicide. I am wondering, if what they said made me laugh were they telling me a lie to get me to laugh? Did they not believe their own words? What else did they lie about? What else have I been told by anyone that was a lie when it was supposed to be the truth? Is what I think the truth or a lie? What do I teach my kids? Will they look back on my words and ask why I lied to them?

If you dont mean it dont say it.

Frustration

My kitchen sink drain is broken. First it was a small leaking pipe under the house.  Then we had to replace a 4ft section of tree root infested with rusted holes. Then the pipe in the wall leading to the sink broke. Snapped. So we replaced the guts under the sink. Now the sink wont drain correctly because of all the grease we dislodged in all this process... omg. I want my fricken kitchen back!!!

New books to read

Downloaded some new books today to my Kindle.  How to communicate, how to say what I mean, and how to be an effective boss.  Hoping I can read them and get some brain food. Tired of not being effective.  If I say what I am thinking I get in trouble for being harsh.  If I say nothing to be polite I am being noncommunaive. Well,  there has to be a middle ground some where.

Entitled

We have raised a generation of non working, lazy, kids that feel they are owed something just because they woke up before noon and stopped playing xbox long enough to go TO the bathroom instead of peeing the bed.

I remember vividly Saturday mornings... I had until 9am to watch cartoons and after that it was all about yard work....

As soon as I was old enough I got a job... I don't recall a time except when the kids were babies that I didn't want to work and earn a paycheck. I don't understand this generations mentality....