Grace is fresh. Every day. Not just any grace, like the grace you may receive from a friend when you've wronged them. Or the grace from the tax man. Those too are great. But the Grace of God revealed in the Person and subsequent death of Christ Jesus is fresh every single day. Every minute of every hour. And I want to live there forever!

I don't know if I am different, and if I'm a little strange, but I can't get enough of understanding the deep truths and realities of God's unbelievable Grace for mankind!

This morning I was paging through some books and just "refuelling", and was reminded and reawakened to the beauties of this Glorious Gospel. Enjoy...

"For most people, it takes more unlearning than learning to understand the fullness of God's Grace and the Glories of the New Covenant!"
DR Andrew Farley

"When one misreads Scripture, it is as dangerous as the captain of a ship misreading a tide chart in shallow waters."
DR Andrew Farley

"You can listen to a whole bunch of Gospel-centred, Grace preaching. But such is the nature of the flesh that all it takes is one works-based sermon to abandon the Glorious Gospel and slip back into a faith based on works."
Joseph Prince

"Many Christians still walk in Old Covenant bondage. Regarding the law as a Divine ordinance for our direction, they consider themselves prepared and fitted by conversion to take up the fulfillment of the law as a natural duty."
Andrew Murray

"There is this kind of dangerous element about the true presentation of the doctrine of salvation."
DR Martin Lloyd-Jones

And I would like to emphatically share with you that I AM ABSOLUTELY, ENTIRELY, COMPLETELY UNASHAMED ABOUT THE TRUE GOSPEL OF CHRIST JESUS! FOR IN THIS GOSPEL, THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD (NOT MAN) IS REVEALED!!!!

I will never settle for anything less! I will never shrink back! This Glorious Gospel is too awesome!

Firstly, I would like to make it emphatically clear that my wife and I count ourselves immensely privileged to be able to travel the way we have done. We place a high value on time together as a family, and hence memory-creating vacations are important to us. Therefore when we set ourselves goals of traveling we begin saving significant portions of our income well in advance. And for this particular trip, that saving started a very long time ago. On top of that, God our Father has been incredibly gracious in providing us all we need in making this trip possible, and for that we are so thankful.

With that in mind… herewith the story of the "trip-of-a-lifetime"...

It all started a good 5 years ago or so. My wife Corinne and myself were edging closer to sweet marital bliss. And each time "honeymoon" came to mind, I pictured snowy, adrenalin-filled days in the Swiss Alps. That was until we set our wedding date, when we realized skiing wasn't good for that time of year.

But the dream of skiing with my wife on beautiful snow covered slopes never died. I had the privilege of going skiing with my family in 2005 in Canada. My first taste of true panoramic mountainside skiing since I was 6 years. Oh I had waited a long time. And the skill hadn't left me either!

Upon return from that 2005 trip I pleaded with Corinne that we go on on a skiing honeymoon, but as mentioned it didn't work out. But the dream remained.

Once mission "tropical-island" had been completed… we embarked on a new adventure. And it was to come.

My family has always been the adventurous type, and quite a traveling bunch. Especially my dad's side. And I had to get some further traveling under my belt before we "settled down" and have kids (or something like that). So we started putting the bucks aside each month and figured 2 or 3 years into our marriage and we should have enough.

We eventually settled on January 2010. We didn't have enough. How can 3 years of saving not work out? You know how it goes. But again, Dad in Heaven supplied ALL our needs. And He blessed us through people and opportunities that had Heaven's signature all over them. And it looked like we would be ok. We were.

One of my favorite testimonies is that of the flight agent. Corinne and I planned our trip, and headed to Flight Centre. The quoted price was one of those that induce heart failure. You know, the reason they're installing heart defibrillators in shopping malls. Yep, one of those.

So, choking back home, we figured it would be back to the drawing board. All until a divine coffee appointment at a local shopping mall.

Corinne, having coffee at a less-visited mall with a friend, spotted a flight agency where she knew the manager. Upon enquiring, the quoted price was close to half the price what Flight Centre quoted! Just little things like that showing God's hand in blessing His kids. We are so thankful.

We finalized our destinations: London, Bognor Regis, New York City, Seattle, Crystal Mountain ski resort (yes!), San Francisco, Redding California, Disneyland LA. Wow. Trip of a life time indeed!

Here ends part 1.

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So that's just a little insight into how the trip came into being. In the next edition I'll give a summary with some photos of the England leg of the trip.

I would love to hear your comments if you've visited and follow this travel journal.

Until then!

Adios

Have you discovered "Pure Grace"? Nothing less, nothing more. Grace is not a doctrine. Neither is it a topic that is visited at the pulpit every few months. Grace is the Person of Jesus Christ.