Friday night

The first session of the Renovare conference was led by Juanita Rasmus. The title of her session was "Touched by the Transforming Power of Grace." She talked about the role grace plays in our lives. She used the word "TOUCH" as an acronym.

T is for Truth. Truth balances out grace and one without the other could lead to problems like "licensed lawlessness."
O is for "Cthers centered," the focus of grace.
U is for Cnconditional love and acceptance. She called this the "work-out" of grace, or putting your words into action.
C is for Community. Community gives us an avenue in which to express grace to those around us.
H is for Hope. Hope is the gift of grace that allows us to look beyond out current situation.

I enjoyed this message as it helped establish the important role that grace plays in all of our lives. I learned a great acronym for Ego: Edging God Out. I was also stretched in the session as Juanita had us turn in our seats to people we didn't know and to say to them "I love you." That was hard. It was even harder when I had to do it again with another person AND hug them. That's definitely not a strong area for me.

In the second session of the evening, Richard Foster's talk was titled "Transforming Grace: Ways and Means." In this talk he recapped his spiritual disciplines and talked about their role in grace. There were a couple key points that I got out of his message. First, discipline does not mean rigidity. You can be disciplined and still be flexible in your life. Second, there are many ways to hear from God. I knew this to some extent, but I had forgotten. God can speak to us through anyone or anything. What's key is to be in tune with Him so that you know when He is speaking. And the third thing I wanted to share, is this eye-opening truth: There is always a problem between the promise and the provision. Think about that the next time trials come your way.