I spoke to you yesterday about the crucial understanding that you are not what you do. Today, I want to expand on that idea by assuring you that you are enough. I understand that saying this at the beginning of the year when you’ve just established objectives and resolutions that require you to run faster and strive harder, sounds bizarre. I’m not dismissing those ideas; in fact, I wholeheartedly believe in them. However, I am confident that if you do not first receive God’s grace and then extend it to yourself, you will not be able to accomplish your goals. Remember that grace is not just mercy; it’s God’s overflowing love and favor toward His Son, which He extends to you because you’ve accepted Jesus as your Savior. It simply implies that you have been called, blessed, and favored simply because He is your identity.

Friend, as you go forward in the following days and months toward your objectives and desires, be sure you’re doing so from a position of unconditional love and acceptance in the Beloved. Allow yourself to let go of attempting to prove yourself to society, religion, parents, siblings, or competition, and realize that you make God pleased just as you are in Jesus. His love for you is equal to His love for His one and only Son, the one He sent to die for you. This means that whatever you strive for is based on His strength and power at work within you, rather than your own.

This year, I encourage you to pursue the things the Lord has placed on your heart, but do so from a “home base of grace.” To put it another way, with the awareness that even if you never made another accomplishment, you would be adored as much as if you ran a two-minute mile. You will travel further and achieve more from that point of grace than you ever could in your own strength! Isn’t this wonderful news?