Giveaway update & Happy Easter!

Hey guys! I know this weekend is pretty busy for everyone so I thought I'd just do a quick post to 

1) Let you know I will be announcing the giveaway winners from the book blog tour and cover reveal on MONDAY (including one super-special swag item)

2) Inform you that there is currently a giveaway going on at Goodreads (see my sidebar to enter)

and

3) Celebrate this upcoming Sunday as a day of us rejoicing in a FINISHED work! He DID so we don't have to DO!

9He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. (2 Timothy 1:9-10)

Two quick notes:

First, holy doesn't mean holy as in "act this way...". Holy is often misinterpreted as our own personal behavior but we can never be "holy" ourselves... it means "separated unto God". There is no way to be "holy" on our own; this is something God qualified us to be via the cross. He made us holy through Jesus. So in the New Testament, after Jesus has died and gone to heaven to sit at the right hand of God, know that His work is finished, and the holiness mentioned is because you have been made set apart unto God by Jesus Himself!

Second, grace means favor--favor not earned by our behavior, but simply given as a gift out of love. That's how wonderful God is... He doesn't look to our behavior, but His own perfect Son's! John 3:17 says, "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him." The truth of the Gospel, of the Good News, of Jesus' work on that cross is that God qualified us to be holy and blameless in His sight because of LOVE, pure and simple!

Here's the original meaning of "grace" in verse nine above (the New Testament was originally written in Greek, so here's the Greek definition):



Notice God's grace comes because it is freely extended? It is not because of our actions, but because He is predisposed to lean toward us, bless us, give us that GIFT of blessing and kindness due to Jesus taking all on the cross! He Himself cried out, "It is finished." (John 19:30); let us rest in Jesus' perfectly finished work this Easter and always!

Be blessed,

Jessica