Grace and mercy that frees us to help others.

Ephesians 2:8-9 (NLT)

8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.

Matthew Henry states, “Every converted sinner is a saved sinner. Such are delivered from sin and wrath; they are brought into a state of salvation, and have a right given them by grace to eternal happiness. The grace that saves them is the free undeserved goodness and favor of God; and he saves them, not by the works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus, by means of which they come to partake of the great blessings of the gospel; and both that faith and that salvation on which it has so great an influence are the gift of God.”

Repentance is a process of showing that you are sorry for something bad or wrong you did and that you want to do what is right. Most often a person tends to feel regret or sorrow for their actions. But God doesn’t want us to live with regret and sorrow, which is why we were saved by grace. For in God’s mercy He does not want us to linger in a state of remorseful sin where we feel prisoners to the sins we have committed. Instead God wants us to know His mercy and be free from the weight of sin that holds us down with regret and sorrow.

God wants to show us that through His power we can move past the sins in our life. There are people who have committed sins and paid the consequences for them. Instead of being held in slavery to the sin they found freedom. They found they could use their past circumstances to help others and minister to people with the same problems they had faced in their life.  

One example that comes to mind is Model and Actress Jennifer Gimenez. Even though she had a successful career she struggled in her personal life. Only those closest to her knew of the severity of her drug and alcohol addiction. The addiction threatened to destroy everything she had worked so hard to achieve. Jennifer went through her struggles to find a road to recovery from addition. Eventually Jennifer found grace and mercy that allowed her to move past her addition and start helping others.

Jennifer works as an addiction counselor, and she’s using her new project, SoberBook.com, as a way to help people open up and seek help. Anyone who has ever struggled with drugs, alcohol, or any other type of an addiction can post their story anonymously, offering hope and support to others who may be going through the same thing.