Grace is a gift. An unearned, undeserved package deal we receive upon our salvation and baptism into the Faith. As a teen, someone described this grace through a picture story concerning the day of judgment in which I would stand before God. The story went as such…
Standing before God at my final judgment with nothing to show for my life but a long list of offenses I’d committed against a holy there was silence. Would I be cast into the eternal pit of death as my life deserved? As God began to speak there were no accusations or judgments. A smile unfolded as his hand welcomed me home. But why? What did I do to enter? Inside rumors were spreading that someone was taking the place of all those who’d entered. I came to find out it wasn’t me God smiled at when I walked up for judgment. He wasn’t looking me in the face, but rather Jesus; his sinless, perfect son. Christ sacrificially stood in front of me without my deserving. He took my blame so that I could go home. He exchanged himself for my sin to give a place in heaven I didn’t earn. I became “justified freely by his grace.”
Grace comes to us out of love. When I graduated university, like many today, I had debt. I also had a calling to move overseas. However, on good conscious I couldn’t go until my debts were paid. I committed myself to pay off all loans before starting a life dependent on the financial support of the church. Perhaps prideful or stubborn I worked faithfully and paid my monthly bills—extra if possible. After five years passed there loomed a few thousand over my head. Feeling defeated and wondering if I’d ever be released to go, my parents decided they wanted to pay the final amount. This freed us to begin preparing to go. They offered me grace. They gifted me with money that released me from a burden and freed me to live the life before me. They did it all without my deserving. I did nothing to make myself worthy to receive their generosity. They gave simply out of love for me. This is grace. (Ephesians 2:4-5)
Though lately I am feeling challenged by how grace can be abused. I by no means disregard grace or wish to live without it. I believe grace is a foundational piece of our faith and one of the greatest aspects of what we believe. Rather a stirring conviction begs me to honestly ask: Do we live in an overindulgent abuse of grace causing us to forget that grace frees us to go, to live, to be and to finish a task toward the furtherance of God’s Kingdom and the spreading of grace? Do we live like grace excuses our sinfulness or our slothfulness toward God’s commands? Do we believe grace was given so we can just rest easy until Christ returns and we all get to heaven?
Grace doesn’t shirk us of our responsibility to the gospel, to his mission for pilgriming in this foreign land.
In our luxury of grace are we abiding in God’s commands? Are we putting God first in our lives by “loving the Lord our God with all our heart with all our soul and with all our strength?” (Deut. 6:5/Mark 12:20) Are we seeking wisdom from God’s word? “Get wisdom, get understanding; do not forget my words or turn away from them.” (Proverbs 4:5) Are we loving him by keeping his commands? “If you love me, keep my commands.” (John 14:15)
What is God’s command?
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 11:30-31)
I’m not prescribing that we become rigid, programmed, judgmental, works-oriented Christians—we do live by grace and honestly, we already do a good job in that arena. I am suggesting an awakening to life fully expressed by living out the truest form of grace.
God gives grace wildly; unashamedly.
Perhaps no one knew this more than Paul, who made himself a slave to the gospel and servant to all. (Philippians 2:7) Pouring out his life because he understood how much God loved him and Paul wanted to love God back as wildly and unashamedly. He loved God and showed this by keeping his commands; obeying God’s leading in his life. (1 John 5:3) He sacrificed his physical body, time, profession, former way of life and prestige because grace transformed him; wrecked him. When Paul put God first he gave God free reign over the entirety of his life. No holding back. When is the last time you sacrificed something in your life because you were so overwhelmed by the grace God has given you?
Holiness is impossible apart from grace, yet we are to be holy.
“Be holy, because I am holy.” (1 Peter1:16) We have the secret code to unlocking holiness. Holiness doesn’t come from perfection. That’s unattainable. We are cross-bearers filled with the Holy Spirit, a walking temple of the Lord. Therefore holiness lives within us. It’s like a virus planted in our core, spreading and overtaking the rot in our lives by reviving it into a healthy, fertile new creation growing the fruit of the Spirit. Holiness spreads peace. Are you living a holy life by making every effort to live in peace with our fellow humankind? (Hebrews 12:14) Peace should be an overflow of what we experience from God each day. Leading us to make recompense with those we’ve wronged and becoming love where there has been hate: living as a means for reconciliation in our broken world. The daily news is a reminder that our world is in need of peace. In our grace-given life are we convicted toward becoming peacemakers while on this earth or do we create dissension? Or worse, do we do nothing at all because it’s ‘too overwhelming and things will never change.’
Grace empowers love.
An identifier for a disciple of Jesus is love. (John 13:35) And I don’t mean like the posters I see in people’s yards around town that say, ‘love is love.’ Let’s not cheapen love by making it cliche. How can we know or be love unless we know where love comes from? If we honestly want to abide by God’s command—to love him and others, then I think 1 John is a good place to start. “But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did.” (vs. 2:5-6) Jesus loved, came as a peacemaker, healed, taught, stirred up the mediocrity of the times and sacrificed his life. Out of grace, we should give no less. This grace we claim to have should not be wasted by our laziness, it’s been given so that it can continue to be given to the world in tangible, eternal ways. It’s recyclable. Grace is all-consuming, transforming, active, uncontainable gift. Gifts are only worth receiving when we can share the joy with someone else. Love can only have value when lavished on someone else. “We love because he first loved us.” (vs.4:19) If you claim to live by grace, is grace oozing from your life into others or is it rotting in your excuses? You are an indwelling of the power of God’s Spirit and his grace in you is not be wasted.
Grace comes with a tagline and it doesn’t say, “You have grace: rest easy you’re set for life.” Rather, “Grace found you: go be its ambassadors and let grace change our world.”
