Yesterday, I talked to you about the very important truth that you are not what you do. Today, I want to further expound on that thought by telling you that you do enough and you are enough. I know this sounds like a strange thing to say at the start of the year when you’ve just set goals and resolutions that require you to run faster and try harder. Believe me, I’m not disparaging those things at all, in fact I 100% endorse in them. However, I am firmly convinced that you won’t be able to achieve the things you want to if you don’t first receive God’s grace and then extend it to yourself. Remember, grace doesn’t mean mercy; instead, it is the overflow of His love and favor towards His Son that is extended to you because you have received Jesus as your Savior. It means that you’re called, your blessed, and you’re favored, simply by virtue of the fact that He is your identity.

Friend, as you move forward toward your goals and dreams in the coming days and months, be sure that you’re doing so from a place of unconditional love and acceptance in the Beloved. Let go of trying to prove yourself to society, religion, parents, siblings, or competitors and understand that, in Jesus, you make God happy just as you are. His affection for you is as great as his affection for His only Son — the one He sent to die for you. This means that whatever you achieve happens on the basis of His strength and power at work within you, not your own.

I encourage you to chase after the things the Lord has put on your heart this year, but do it from a “home base of grace.” In other words, with an understanding that if you never accomplished another thing, you would be loved just as extravagantly as if you ran a two-minute mile. From that place of grace, you will go farther and achieve more than you ever could in your own strength! Isn’t that amazing news?