Faith-based Self-Defense for Girls

PODCAST TIME!!! Clearly, I’m working on my interview skills, so bear with me as you listen to a radio interview between myself and a delightful host at a Christian radio station in California. We talked about faith-based self-defense for girls.

I’ve posted the entire interview on my Podcast. Besides sharing online self-defense and life skills for girls at The Great Flip, I was given the opportunity to go deeper about my desire to develop faith-based motivation resources to compliment the online self-defense program. Feel free to share!

Faith-based Self-defense

In the interview, I tried to communicate a few reasons for making GRACE a central theme at The Great Flip. Understanding GRACE is foundational to the Christian faith. And I want girls to be fully grounded in her knowledge of GRACE. Once GRACE has a firm foundation in a girl’s heart, she will know her freedom in Christ is marked not by her works, but instead by Jesus’s life, death and resurrection, and most important by His finished work.

Keep your ears open for an important distinction I make about Christianity. Listen for words about “law,” which are activities and works girls feel obligated to do to earn something. Then listen carefully for GRACE, which is freely given to us from God, no strings attached.

GRACE-based Faith

As Christians we are saved by GRACE through faith as Ephesians 2:8-9 states “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Simply put, Jesus + nothing = everything. On the contrary Jesus + something = nothing.  And by the way, as a subscriber to The Great Flip, you have access to a series of messages that dig deep into this equation: Jesus + nothing = everything! Click here for 2 Ways to Join and Subscribe now.

A Parable about GRACE

Here’s something amazing about GRACE illustrated in one of Jesus’ parables in the Gospel of Mark 2.

“No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins – and wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.” Mark 2:21-22

Jesus tells an unusual parable comparing old clothes and new patches and old and new wineskins. He says the two cannot mix. Jesus was trying to enlighten the Pharisees who continued to question his “new” way of doing things. They were trying to add GRACE into their equation and traditions.

A more contemporary expression might be “Out with the old and in with the new.”

Any religion that requires you to do something to earn something is driven by law. It’s exhausting. Unfortunately, even some Christians get caught in works-based religion.

However, Jesus came to offer GRACE. His death, resurrection and ascension frees us from the law. He is not adding more to the law. He has replaced the law with GRACE. The only good that comes from the law, is its ability to point you immediately to GRACE!

Read these Bible verses to understand GRACE.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, behold, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17

“And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh…” Ezekiel 11:19

Now, back to the parable about garments and wineskins. We can’t patch our garments. Jesus wants to give us a brand-new jacket. His robe of righteousness.

Listen up girls, don’t just add GRACE to your Christian life. Give him your burdens, your anxiety and all the “to-do” lists. He gives amazing GRACE and it’s free. Get rid of the old and receive the new.  If you try and add GRACE to your “to-do” list, you will burst with stress and anxiety. Receive it freely. Rest in his GRACE.

This is The Great Flip, “For our sake, He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21

Why have I continued to capitalize the word GRACE? Here’s an acronym to help you remember the depths of God’s GRACE.

God’s

Riches

At

Christ’s

Expense

Activity:

Find and write the Bible verses in this blog on note cards or in a journal. Memorize your favorite one. What promises do you hear in these verses for you? Thank God for his amazing GRACE through Jesus Christ.

See you on the mat! – Coach Jody