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Grace substitutes a full, childlike, and delighted acceptance of our need, a joy in total dependence. We become ‘jolly beggars.’ ~C.S. Lewis
There is something about those rare birds who have learned to soar above the ho-hum life many of us have become accustomed to living, knowingly or not. Maybe you don’t know the ones I am speaking of here.
Philip Yancey shares the following:
Not long ago I received in the mail a postcard from a friend that had on it only six words, ‘I am the one Jesus loves.’ I smiled when I saw the return address, for my strange friend excels at these pious slogans. When I called him, though, he told me the slogan came from the author and speaker Brennan Manning. At a seminar, Manning referred to Jesus’ closest friend on earth, the disciple named John, identified in the Gospels as ‘the one Jesus loved.’ Manning said, “If John were to be asked, ‘What is your primary identity in life?’ he would not reply, ‘I am a disciple, an apostle, an evangelist, an author of one of the four Gospels,’ but rather, ‘I am the one Jesus loves.’”
What would it mean, I ask myself, if I too came to the place where I saw my primary identity in life as ‘the one Jesus loves’? How differently would I view myself at the end of a day?
Sociologists have a theory of the looking-glass self: you become what the most important person in your life (wife, father, boss, etc.) thinks you are. How would my life change if I truly believed the Bible’s astounding words about God’s love for me, if I looked in the mirror and saw what God sees?
Brennan Manning tells the story of an Irish priest who, on a walking tour of a rural parish, sees an old peasant kneeling by the side of the road, praying. Impressed, the priest says to the man, ‘You must be very close to God.’ The peasant looks up from his prayers, thinks a moment, and then smiles, ‘Yes, he’s very fond of me.’ (What’s So Amazing About Grace?, pages 68-69)
I too, was reminded about this kind of simple dependance upon God yesterday when I stumbled across the following verse that one of my daughters had posted.
Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes (Matthew 6:34, The Message).
The full life Jesus speaks of is a life of learned dependance .
For when you are deeply aware of your sin, and of what an affront it is to God’s holiness, and how impossible it is for Him to respond to this sin with anything other than furious wrath—you can only be overwhelmed with how amazing grace is. ~C.J. Mahaney
Some of us just never get it. We deserve nothing better than Hell. How different our relationships with one another would be if we were to truly grasp this truth. We’d demend far less from one another and extend grace all the more.
God loves us not because he has to, he has no obligation to concern himself with such self-centered mortals. We have broken his holy laws—for coveteouness, lusts, and idolatry have overtaken our hearts in his place. When worship should have been our response to Jesus Christ we cursed instead. God loves us because he wants to, we’d prefer he did so because he had to. We’d be off the hook then. We could pat ourselves on the back every once in ahwile if that were the case. But it’s not. Our rightousness is as pure as a glass of water laced with arsinic. Our motives are impure. Our hearts harbor evil. If God were operating on a merit basis we’d all be looking forward to a future in a lake of fire. If God were dishing out his love based on even our best behavior our bowls would be dry. If God were giving us grace due to our Sunday-best behavior we’d be out of luck.
How few of us ever have our eyes opened! Our one hope, our only hope—is in Christ. He is all, or he is nothing. Jesus is our free pass, not some coupon to be combined with our good intent. That may offend us, but the scriptures declare the offense of the cross, not the niceties of the cross. We can bet our last dollar that the cross of Christ will be at odds with our pride.
15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. 20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 5:15-21, ESV).
Is your hope in vain? What are hoping for? Are hoping for a chance that you’ll have a shot at get getting some consideration for all of the nice things you have done? Or, are you placing all bets on the exclusive hope offered in Jesus Christ?
I feel, when I have sinned, an immediate reluctance to go to Christ. I am ashamed to go. I feel as if it would do no good to go, as if it were making Christ a minister of sin, to go straight from the swine-trough to the best robe, and a thousand other excuses; but I am persuaded they are all lies, direct from hell. John argues the opposite way: ‘If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father.’ I am sure there is neither peace nor safety from deeper sin, but in going directly to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is God’s way of peace and holiness. It is folly to the world and the beclouded heart, but it is the way. -Robert Murray M’Cheyne
Let me pay for my sins Lord. You know I don’t very much like anyone doing anything for me that I can’t pay them back for. Who did you consult with before you just went ahead and sent Jesus to suffer and die in my place? And then, if that wasn’t enough, you went ahead and gave me the faith necessary to believe in him since I didn’t possess it within myself. Can you see where I am going with this Lord?
We both know I don’t deserve forgiveness. I couldn’t deserve it less. What should be mine is judgement, death, wrath, torment, and eternal horror—this business about being treated like royalty when I have played the traitor like a seasoned pro is just so incredibly uncomfortable. Could you make an exception here? All this free stuff you give me with no strings attached isn’t doing much in building up my self-image. I mean, it makes you look really good, and it makes me look, well—silly and so undeserving. And you aren’t doing a very impressive job when it comes to living up to the descriptions about you in some of the more popular ‘Christian’ books—they make you out to be so much more like us than you really are.
So, at least let me pay for something. You won’t have to share much of the credit. Just this one time, please. Your grace is just so offensive! Could you tone it down a bit? Everything within my carnal man cringes when faced with sheer grace. You love me when I am just so—unlovable. Let’s make a deal: I won’t take any of the credit. Let me help though. I want to do my part to make it right—offer my contribution. It’s tough watching you do all the heavy lifting while I enjoy the spoils.
But you just won’t accept it. My works of righteousness and efforts at making peace are repudiated. You condemn my sincerest attempts to live after Christ in my own strength. Couldn’t you have set this thing up differently? Why does the blood of Jesus have to be enough? Level the playing field a little. As it is, I give you dirty linens (my sin), and you give me a clean slate. I give you soiled rags (my good works), and you give me a reward. I grieve your Spirit and I want to somehow undo what I have done, but you have none of it. My condolences don’t suffice. Penance isn’t necessary. You won’t even let me do time in purgatory. If I could pay some kind of fee to cover even the least of my wrongdoings it’d be so much easier, I could throw a few dollars in the coffer and feed the poor and hold open doors for old ladies—and we’d be square.
It’s not fair and I want to feel better about me.
16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Psalm 51:16-17, ESV)
Come to think of it, maybe instead of letting me help you, you could help kill my pride some more and make me humble while you are at it.
I’m in this race to win a prize
The odds against me
The world has plans for my demise
What they don’t see
Is that a winner is not judged by his small size
But by the substitute he picks to run the race
And mines already won
-Audio Adrenaline, Underdog
I was out walking one night last year while living right around the corner from Vanderbilt, one of the great institutions of learning—thought maybe I’d pick up some knowledge by osmosis living near-by. It didn’t work out quite that way. A route I would often take passed by the university’s track where several runners and budding track-stars would be slogging around the black top covered oval at any given time of the day out there making their rounds in pursuit of some worthy goal. One night I noticed a considerably younger girl trailing a pack of older girls, she wasn’t all that far behind, but far enough that it looked as if she had no shot at catching them. For all I know, the young girl had been lapped several times over. She was giving it her all and it was obvious she was in hot pursuit to catch these girls, no matter the odds. It was moving.
What gave me goose bumps was not this young runner as much it was the man I noticed jogging up and down around the middle of the track. He was intent on motivating these girls as he barked out encouragement. I couldn’t hear him, but I am sure he was pulling for this little girl, just like I was.
Even if she didn’t win, I wanted to see her catch up and challenge the group she lagged behind.
If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us—trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us—he lives! Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus’ sake, which makes Jesus’ life all the more evident in us. While we’re going through the worst, you’re getting in on the best! (2 Corinthians 4:7-9, The Message)
I got to thinking as I walked on past that track and further down the road, that I am an underdog myself in many ways—sort of like that girl. Be it my average to less than average size, my education, or my lack of it. Certainly my meager income has me feeling a little dis-advantaged at times, that is, when I have an income. And I don’t always consider my personal brokenness and my many shattered dreams any kind of asset much of the time.
God’s like that coach or dad in the middle of the track, you know. Cheering us on. Calling us forward. Motivating us to stretch irregardless of our limitations. Even if we do trail the runners ahead. And when we think there is no possible way to catch them, God believes we can pass them.
If you feel like an underdog, take heart.
God is for the underdogs.
All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception.
-Simone Weil, French mystic and social activist (1909-1943)
I was surfing the blogosphere recently and ran across the above quote, to which an unnamed blogger commented—He whose will is his Father’s, whose company is his betrayer, whose victory is his forsakenness, whose love is his suffering, is free; the exception which destroys the rule.
There is no one in the entire Old Testament who got a rawer deal than Joseph. Job lost everything, Hosea had a prostitute wife named Gomer to deal with, and prophets were killed for speaking the word of the Lord—but Joseph lived in exile year after year for merely having a dream and being foolish enough to share that dream with his own brothers (the very brothers who sold him for twenty shekels of silver and staged a phony murder to fool their father). Fortunes turn however, and the brothers faced a famine and a brother in turn who now had their futures in his hands—a brother they thought was long gone.
18 His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, ‘Behold, we are your servants.’ 19 But Joseph said to them, ‘Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? 20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. 21 So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.’ Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. (Genesis 50:18-21, ESV)
It is said that Joseph was a type of Christ, a foreshadow if you will—no scripture bears witness more.
As each of us play the betrayer at one point in our lives or another—sooner or later we become the betrayed. Living a life of grace means giving grace to the most undeserving. Essentially, it is handing the very instrument intended to wipe us out to the one who would do the deed. Eventually we all face our accuser—we all stand before our enemy—empty handed, with one of two choices: To strangle the scoundrel with our own two hands, or to reach out and embrace him.
Jesus calls us to extend grace. Even to our betrayer. To withhold grace from the most underserving is to most assuredly be—ungraceful.
If you desire to believe rightly and to possess Christ truly, then you must reject all works that you intend to place before and in the way of God. They are only stumbling blocks, leading you away from Christ and from God. Before God no works are acceptable but Christ’s own works. Let these plead for you before God, and do no other work before him than to believe that Christ is doing his works for you and is placing them before God in your behalf.
-Martin Luther
We’ve all surely heard the old joke about the religious man who climbed up onto his roof when a flood hit, praying for God to save him. A boat came by, and he waved them off—Save someone else, God will save me. A helicopter came by—same thing. The flood waters rose higher, and he drowned. When the religious man got to meet God, he demanded, Why didn’t you save me when I prayed? God simply responded—I sent a boat, I sent a helicopter…
The help that God sent in Jesus Christ is all the help we need—for without him we can’t fight our way out of a wet paper bag spiritually. Our chances of getting into heaven without the free gift of salvation in Christ are zilch—nada—nothing. And when it comes to living the Christian life without the empowerment of God the same holds true—we don’t stand goldfishes chance in a pool filled with piranhas.
We can’t add a pennies worth to all the riches of heaven—anything we have to offer God was a gift in the first place.
Jesus sensed that his disciples were having a hard time with this and said, ‘Does this throw you completely? What would happen if you saw the Son of Man ascending to where he came from? The Spirit can make life. Sheer muscle and willpower don’t make anything happen. Every word I’ve spoken to you is a Spirit-word, and so it is life-making. But some of you are resisting, refusing to have any part in this.’ (Jesus knew from the start that some weren’t going to risk themselves with him. He knew also who would betray him.) He went on to say, ‘This is why I told you earlier that no one is capable of coming to me on his own. You get to me only as a gift from the Father.’ (John 6:61-65, The Message Bible)
We have no chance of following Jesus without the grace God gives—namely, the power of the living Christ flowing and breathing through us.
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Jesus came to raise the dead. He did not come to teach the teachable; He did not come to improve the improvable; He did not come to reform the reformable. None of those things work. -Robert Farrar Capon
During the Protestant Reformation, reformer Martin Luther and the humanist-scholar Desiderius Erasmus were debating about what best presents the nature of salvation and our need for grace. Erasmus, a theologian himself, admitted that sin had made man sick, and went on to say that our need for grace is like a young toddler who is learning to walk. Erasmus reasoned that a person is able to take some steps towards God—but sometimes man also needs his heavenly Father to catch him and help him along. Luther—the lightning bolt for grace—was offended by such a weak and pitiful view of grace. According to Luther, Erasmus had it flat out wrong. Luther went on to explain that our salvation is more like a caterpillar that is completely surrounded by a ring of fire and unless someone reaches down and rescues the little critter—it would certainly fry to a crisp. In his book Chosen by God, the layman’s theologian R.C. Sproul argues that there is a world of difference between treading water and reaching out for a life jacket that gets tossed to you to save you from drowning than there is, say, being dead on the bottom of a river and not being able to lift a finger to help engineer such a rescue—instead you’d need to be brought back to life before you could think about anything else. And so it is with our conversion Sproul goes on to say—we had nothing to do with bringing it to pass. It is nothing short of a miracle, not some venture we help God out with. If we are to accurately appreciate the gospel message and present it’s truth to those dead in their sin and on the road to hell—we need to understand the gravity of our ghastly predicament without Jesus, the exclusive Messiah. 1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus… (Ephesians 2:1-6, ESV) For those of us prone to think we can add one thing to what God has already done for us—we might want to reconsider. God has done it all in Christ Jesus—there is no escaping the ring of fire without him. |
A saint is not someone who is good but someone who experiences the goodness of God.
-Thomas Merton
What is it or who is it you will forsake in order to follow Jesus?
If it’s not everyone and everything—you are in the same boat as the young man who was stuck on his possessions. The young rich man didn’t need Jesus when you get down to it. It wasn’t just his money he was holding on to, he was plenty content with himself and his own good works—the young man was happy enough and could live his life without Jesus. Those of us who follow Jesus—well, we decided the time had come to give up on our plans to live without Jesus.
Unlike the self-suffiecient young man, we didn’t decide to follow Jesus because we were so smart, wise or even good. We were in need and Jesus came to us and we figured nothing else had worked. The assumption that we were so willing to forsake all else was challenged the moment sin came knocking on our door and we succumbed—the notion that we were so smart was shattered the day we put our hope in something other than Jesus—and the idea that we were so wise was dispelled the moment we followed the crowd rather than the Savior. And if you can’t relate, follow Jesus a little while and you will.
Another day, a man stopped Jesus and asked, ‘Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?’
Jesus said, ‘Why do you question me about what’s good? God is the One who is good. If you want to enter the life of God, just do what he tells you.’
The man asked, ‘What in particular?’
Jesus said, ‘Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as you do yourself.”
The young man said, ‘I’ve done all that. What’s left?’
‘If you want to give it all you’ve got,’ Jesus replied, ‘go sell your possessions; give everything to the poor. All your wealth will then be in heaven. Then come follow me.’ (Matthew 19:16-21, The Message Bible)
Some of us are fortunate enough to have somehow ended up following Jesus.
A true understanding and humble estimate of oneself is the highest and most valuable of lessons. To take no account of oneself, but to always think well and highly of others is the highest wisdom and perfection. Should you see another person openly doing evil, or carrying out a wicked purpose, do not on that account consider yourself better than him, for you cannot tell how long you will remain in a state of grace. We all are frail; Consider none more frail than yourself.
-Thomas a Kempis, Inner Life
I can remember sneaking around our dark-musty and damp basement as a kid one fall day looking for some of my Christmas presents that my parents had went out and purchased a little early that year (I had inside information). Looking back as worse as I can remember, I don’t feel so bad about my doing the bad deed as much as I do about dragging my younger sister into the shame of it. After not too much rummaging around, I found it, the jackpot—what looked to be a sleeping bag—and a nice one at that. I couldn’t fully open it as it was already wrapped and seeing I’d have to put back together any unwrapping job I did to keep my mischeviousness under wraps—I wasn’t able to decipher exactly what brand or color it was.
Not too long after, Christmas day rolled around. And was I jazzed. I had been waiting months for my new sleeping bag. When it finally came time to open up the thing I ripped it open as I was fond of doing and blurted out without an ounce of hesitation—I thought it was blue the first time saw it!
I was cooked, the thing was hunter green.
Many times what we think we see isn’t even close to what we think it is. No where is this more evident than in the way we judge one another. One of the most horrendous things we can do is look down on and greatly mischaracterize one another. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me may be repeated on playgrounds, but you won’t read the words in Scripture. We shred one another with the the words we whisper without ever picking up a pair of shears. We size one another up by what we say and by what we don’t say, by the the things we do or don’t do—or most of the time—what we think was said or done. Essentially, we save our harshest judgements for the way things look.
I call it guilty by speculation.
Jesus instructs his disciples:
It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this I-know-better-than-you mentality again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your own part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor. (Luke 6:41-42, The Message Bible)
Often, what our assessments of one another are built on is what we have heard—based on someone elses’ selfish and twisted agenda. When we gossip, we are not re-telling the truth to get the story straight—no—we are telling it most often to verbally crucify someone or make ourselves look or feel better.
God help us.
Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There’s no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of rasberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth. ~Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words
One of my favorite movies is Les Miserables and friends who have seen the musical version have told me it made a lasting impression on them as well and for good reason—the film is steeped in grace. I can’t say I have ever seen grace more profoundly displayed on the big-screen. Philip Yancey tells of the following scene in his book What’s So Amazing About Grace?
Sentenced to a nineteen-year term of hard labor for the crime of stealing bread, Jean Valjean gradually hardened into a tough convict. No one could beat him in a fistfight. No one could break his will. At last Valjean earned his release. Convicts in those days had to carry identity cards, however, and no innkeeper would let a dangerous felon spend the night. for four days he wandered the village roads, seeking shelter against the weather, until finally a kindly bishop had mercy on him.
That night Jean Valjean lay still in an uncomfortable bed until the bishop and his sister drifted off to sleep. He rose from his bed, rummaged through the cupboard for the family silver, and crept off into the darkness.
The next morning three policemen knocked on the bishop’s door, with Valjean in tow. They had caught the convict in flight with purloined silver, and were ready to put the scoundrel in chains for life.
The bishop responded in a way that no one, especially Jean Valjean, expected.
‘So here you are!’ he cried to Valjean. ‘I am delighted to see you. Had you forgotten that I gave you the candlesticks as well? They’re silver like the rest, and worth a good 200 francs. Did you forget to take them?’
Jean Valjean’s eyes had widened. He was now staring at the old man with an expression no words can convey.
Valjean was no thief, the bishop assured the gendarmes. ‘The silver was my gift to him.’
When the gendarmes withdrew, the bishop gave the candlesticks to his guest, now speechless and trembling. ‘Do not forget, do not ever forget,’ said the bishop, ‘that you have promised me to use the money to make yourself an honest man.’
The power of the bishop’s act, defying every human instinct for revenge, changed Valjean’s life forever. A naked encounter with forgiveness—especially since he had never repented—melted the granite defenses of his soul. He kept the candlesticks as a precious memento of grace and dedicated himself from then on to helping others in need.
Just as was the case with Valjean—you and I can’t earn that which is undeserved and that is the beauty of what we call grace.
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9, NIV)
In working out our callings, we are to perform for one audience, the audience of One.
-Os Guinness
Many of us personaly know several fine-upstanding and well-respected individuals and preachers—some of them have touched our lives beyond mention.
While I am aware that God has diametrically different plans for us than our becoming a bunch of rowdy-trouble-making-hoodlums—some times I get the feeling that we stop short in what we define as who we should be, or to put it another way—what kind of a legacy we should be building as Jesus-followers. It seems to me that a size-able portion of us are much too concerned with leaving the sort of legacy in which we will be honored. I am still waiting to meet someone who says I want every one to re-count at my funeral what a mean person I was. Some of us will be remembered a hundred years from now I suppose and others of us who served God just as sincerely may be all but forgoten by every living human on earth within that same time span.
Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of ‘the brightest and the best’ among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these ‘nobodies’ to expose the hollow pretensions of the ’somebodies’? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, ‘If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.’ (1 Corinthians 1:26-31, The Message Bible)
What I fear is that we have become much too obsessed with the impression we will leave on others while we remain too little concerned with the legacy God wishes to let us participate in leaving. Maybe, I need to speak for myself—but I have recently had to ask myself some tough questions.
The way I figure it—the only legacy worth leaving is a legacy of grace.
If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
-Mother Teresa
The Associated Press reports this morning:
A woman charged in the drunken-driving death of her son went to a bar after his funeral instead of reporting back to jail, state police said. A judge had given Erin Howard, 26, of Corry, permission to leave the Erie County Prison for 24 hours to attend her son’s funeral in Ohio, with orders to return to the lockup by 3 p.m. Saturday. Instead, Howard went to a bar in Hamilton, Ohio, about a mile from the church where the funeral for 6-year-old Samuel Carpenter was held, police said. Calls to Howard’s public defender went unanswered after business hours Monday. Howard had been in prison in lieu of $75,000 bail on charges that she was driving drunk when she crashed into a creek bank near Corry, killing Samuel on June 14—her 26th birthday. Pennsylvania police found out Sunday morning that Howard had been arrested in Ohio after her son’s father allegedly tipped off authorities to her whereabouts. She was being held in Ohio awaiting extradition to Erie. Howard has now been charged with escape in addition to involuntary manslaughter, drunken driving, child endangerment, and other charges related to the crash.
What a tragic story and what deplorable behavior. This mother is going to have a tough time getting over this. Some of us, after reading this report might be saying, Good—she needs to think about what’s she’s done. Maybe so. The reality is this however: Erin Howard will need a lot more than time to get over what she’s done. This woman will need grace, and for those of us who find it easy to point a finger and say How could she even think about going to the bar after such selfishness—let me suggest—the same way we could without the grace and mercy of God.
Talk and act like a person expecting to be judged by the Rule that sets us free. For if you refuse to act kindly, you can hardly expect to be treated kindly. Kind mercy wins over harsh judgment every time. (James 2:12-13, The Message Bible)
This woman’s story isn’t much unlike a lot of people’s stories we rub shoulders with every day, and you don’t have to visit the local jail to meet folks who battle with the same kind of guilt this woman is sure to deal with soon. People don’t have much trouble getting themselves into a pile of guilt—what they do have trouble finding is those rare people who would show a woman like this a shred of grace. All the time in the world this woman may spend in jail won’t be worth one second of grace. It’s a story like this that makes me wonder how many of us haven’t had to do the time we should have done for our transgressions? Maybe I’m just a softie, but I’d just assume leave the justice part to the authorities, it sounds as if they will show her plenty.
The question for us is quite simple: If we don’t share grace with a woman like this—who on earth are we going to show it to?
Lord I come to You
Let my heart be changed, renewed
Flowing from the grace
That I’ve found in You
And Lord I’ve come to know
The weaknesses I see in me
Will be stripped away
By the power of Your love
-Lyrics by Rebecca St. James, The Power of Your Love
I never signed up to blog so I could complain—but that doesn’t mean I won’t share my opinion. With that being said, I will say this—I’m wore out with hearing about how good so and so is—what a great organization such and such is—and what a great country America is, can be, should be, or was at such and such a time and could be again if it would only heed the advice of doctor whoever. Hey—I value my American citizenship, but it pales in comparison to my citizenship as a Jesus-follower. The two aren’t even worth mentioning in the same sentence—but I do it nonetheless. Yeah. I’ve had it. Mostly, I have had it with me—so please don’t take this the wrong way.
When does anyone talk about how good God is?
God is good to one and all; everything he does is suffused with grace. (Psalm 145:9, The Message Bible)
We are so quick to question and doubt God due to the pain, disasters and evil in the world—so when do we give him credit for all of the wonder? I’ve had more than my fill of all the feel good stories about this, that and the other. We are a bunch of rebels when you get down to it. The so called best of the best among us (that I know anyways, and I know a few)—have sinned mightily and the sins they (keep me out of it) have committed haven’t been done as some far away from God heathen—but as followers of Christ. And for the rest of you who say Not me—I will keep praying God helps you get real. If you want to maintain your innocence at the expense of the kindness of God, please spare me the email. I don’t need to know how holy you are or how holy I could be if I just was more like you—besides, I won’t be very nice in return.
We don’t like readily admitting it, but our dishonesty won’t change reality—we are much better at telling one another how loving and caring and sharing one another is. It’s so precious. But when is some one going to stand up and speak out about the grace of God and be a bastion of mercy? People go nuts when you talk about the unadulterated and undeserved grace of God. Ask me, I know firsthand—I have very few friends (never did) any more now that I speak about God’s grace in the terms I do and it doesn’t hurt that I can’t afford to throw the barbeque’s any longer. I don’t even own a cheap charcoal grill these days—and please don’t fret for me—I’ll get mine with streets of gold and all the golf I can stomach one day. Come to think of it, I kind of like it actually—I sleep better and enjoy the few obvious friendships I do have. My phony friends had an easy out and got out—and for those of you who don’t like me saying so, well, maybe you never experienced the sting.
I get more flack when I talk about God’s patience and my depravity then any other time I write. And why? I need some schooling here. We need to recover how bad off we were—are—and would be without Christ. I get the comments on my blog and I converse with a few people—and what I gather is that we are almost clueless really when it comes to what raw grace is.
Undeserved grace—that’s what grace is, isn’t it?
How we need it.
God creates out of nothing. Therefore, until a man is nothing, God can make nothing out of him.
–Martin Luther
For as long as I can remember I have mantained that if you have no enemies you are doing everything wrong. On the other hand, having a pile of enemies can’t possibly be the proof that you are doing anything right just as living on a golf course doesn’t make you Arnold Palmer.
So, either I am doing every thing wrong or I am doing some thing right, and besides, I’m for getting it right rather than being right after all.
I have been accused of being a grace freak—it is a name I’ll gladly accept. In response (and some times we do well to respond, rather than to ignore for the sake of our listeners), I do have a term for my detractors—grace minimizers. The best definition I can provide in regards to what I mean by that phrase is this; grace deprived and rule-based living that my enemies try to enslave whoever they can with—plainly a sort of thinking that we can live the Christ-empowered life on our own merits or in our own energy.
Give me a life of grace, grace and more grace.
God can’t stand evil scheming, but he puts words of grace and beauty on display. (Proverbs 15:26, The Message Bible)
I’ll let my enemies continue to go on in their fruitless and endless efforts to get into heaven as the ancient E.F. Hutton commercial used to say, the old fashioned way—they can keep trying like hell to earn it. In the meantime, I have given up on my hopes of getting any ataboys from God by my being a good boy—instead, I’ll settle for trusting in and spouting off about the wonders of sheer grace.
I was born a child of grace
Nothing else about the place
Everything was ugly but your beautiful face
And it left me no illusion
-Lyrics from U2, All Because of You
I know, after my last post some of you might be thinking God’s gonna finally get Ken. Maybe you are right—it has been a long time coming. The truth is I have some enemies. Some of these opposers have been lying in wait just hoping and praying for my demise. Now you are saying, Come on Ken. Well, I wouldn’t say so if they hadn’t have told me so. I guess I just believe people.
The grace of God is scandalous to those of us who don’t understand the nature of grace. For the record, I tried really hard to make amends with the enemies I am aware of, going over and over again about my many sins and begging for forgiveness. In the end, I needed grace from my enemies and all of the pleading and self-depreciating I participated in got me no where. I have learned in the process that some folks don’t have the capacity to give grace—or at least don’t want very much to practice it if they do. You can apologize until you are blue in the face and some folks will just use your doing so to rub your sins in your face all the more. Hey, maybe they haven’t learned to forgive themselves yet, I don’t know—but I have given up on trying to figure these people out.
The grace (the unmerited favor and blessings) of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah) be with you all. Amen, (so be it). (1 Thessalonians 5:28, The Amplified Bible)
Trying to deserve grace (an oxymoron I realize) from people who do not understand the nature of grace is an exercise in futility. God never forgives us or accepts us based on our showing him we deserve either—but to the contrary. Plainly speaking—grace is not something we earn, and there are those unfortunates who will tell you they agree but in secret they don’t know the first thing about grace. I have done everything short of offer my body to the flames and somehow I don’t even think that would make my enemies happy. I must admit, and regretfully, that I have broken a few promises to God (and it looks as if they haven’t). Unlike my enemies, I believe in grace for Ken (a prime candidate)—though I realize I am awful bold and appear greedy to do so. But after all, what good would grace be if it weren’t for our worst sins?
If there is no such thing as scandalous grace I figure I’m flat out of chances.
The sin underneath all our sins is the lie of the serpent that we cannot trust the love and grace of Christ and that we must take matters into our own hands.
-Martin Luther
Recently I was praying and I ended up having one of those uncomfortable moments—but it was one I needed to endure nonetheless. I’d call the instance a personal Come to Jesus Meeting. I had promised God not too long ago that I was going to stop doing something I needed to dis-continue a good while ago and it hadn’t worked—my promising that is. The failure to keep my promise had left me feeling shameful and had slowly grown into a source of pain, frustration and resentment—directed at no one other than myself.
I was going around and around with this struggle of mine—one that I had thought I’d have whipped into shape by this point in my life. I hesitated to talk about it with anyone because the last time I did—it cost me. I really hadn’t even wanted to face it and was hoping that for once, my ignoring it was going to make it disappear. But there it was, staring me in the face. My broken promises to be better had landed me in a pile of self-pity and I was tired of being sick of it.
Basically, I told God I was wore out with trying to handle a battle I wasn’t very well winning—and that promising him I’d just quit doing that which I knew he had warned me about wasn’t working for me like I thought it might. Obviously—the answer had to be something other than making another one of my half-hearted desperate promises. He knew it and I knew it. And to hide it or pretend it were different wasn’t going to help either. I suggested he just flog me for being so presumptuous to make a promise I wasn’t serious enough to follow up on. I certainly deserve it (the flogging at least), but I just have trouble believing God is gonna rake me over the coals or show me the door at this point.
The way I look at it, I can take one for the team and be the one guy my teammates can look to and say: If Ken gets grace, there has to be grace for the rest of us!
Remember what you said to me, your servant—
I hang on to these words for dear life!
These words hold me up in bad times;
yes, your promises rejuvenate me.
The insolent ridicule me without mercy,
but I don’t budge from your revelation.
(Psalm 119:49-51, The Message Bible)
My broken promises haven’t gotten me too far but I get the sense that trusting God’s promises will get me a whole lot farther.
Grace is given to heal the spiritually sick, not to decorate spiritual heroes.
-Martin Luther
I look at the father of the prodigal and I have to wonder what possesed him to go so easy on his pig-sty project. Here’s a guy with a kid who broke all the rules. And then one day his lame excuse for a son comes dragging his sorry self out of the slop and back to the house just as pitiful as a dog who has just messed all over the Persian dining room rug. And what does his father do?
Does he read him the riot act? Does he remind him of the rules he’s made a mockery of? Does he send him out to the back alley to go and do some penance before he’s allowed to re-enter the house?
No—he doesn’t.
”When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: ‘Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son ever again.’
“But the father wasn’t listening. He was calling to the servants, ‘Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!’ And they began to have a wonderful time.” (Luke 15:20-24, The Message Bible)
Despite the fathers own personal pain and embarrassment he runs out to greet and cover his smelly-broken son in kisses and does the unthinkable to follow—he throws him an all out bash!
Maybe it’s time some of us realized that God’s love isn’t near as tough as ours.
When we sin and mess up our lives, we find that God doesn’t go off and leave us… He enters into our trouble and saves us.
-Eugene Peterson
Things aren’t always the way we are told they are. I was in church this past Sunday and my pastor was going on about the virtue of honesty. During his message he talked about the most well-known story in terms of honesty possibly in American history. It’s a story involving the patriot, war hero and president, George Washington. The story goes that young George was asked by his father about a tree that had been cut down at the family compound and responded: Father, I cannot tell a lie. I chopped down this cherry tree.
Well, the story is a big fat lie—seems the most popular story about honesty is nothing more than a sham.
Religion isn’t shy about trying to convince us that in order to get control of our sin problem (we are saved you know—and sinning isn’t what we ought to be doing)—all we must do is somehow kill our desires. It’s no wonder so many of us consider following Jesus more like living in a torture chamber than we do a daily celebration.
21-22 If such is the case, is the law, then, an anti-promise, a negation of God’s will for us? Not at all. Its purpose was to make obvious to everyone that we are, in ourselves, out of right relationship with God, and therefore to show us the futility of devising some religious system for getting by our own efforts what we can only get by waiting in faith for God to complete his promise. For if any kind of rule-keeping had power to create life in us, we would certainly have gotten it by this time. (Galatians 3:21-22, The Message Bible)
Just as the law (I’ll add religion) was powerless to save us—so it is unable to give us a lick when it comes to living the Christian life. All the law can do is point us to Jesus—it can’t empower us to follow him in a million life-times. We can thank God for the law in that it painfully shows us our utter inadequacy, but we must not then turn around and attempt to live up to it’s standards in hopes that we ever will ever meet it’s demands. To do so is to undermine the faith we placed in Jesus when we gave up trying to earn God’s favor—as if we ever could have. Jesus bridged that chasm.
The big fat lie of religion is that is powerful enough to rescue us when all it does is hinder us, and in the end, it sucks the very life out of us when we put any stock in it. Jesus—the author of liberty—is the only One we need to put our stock in.
Whenever faith seems an entitlement, or a measuring rod, we cast our lots with the Pharisees and grace softly slips away.
-Philip Yancey, Soul Survivor
Pastor Mark Driscoll has laid out what I believe to be the best list I have run across in some time on the distinct differences between the Gospel and religion. Jesus delivered the very Gospel we preach today within the context of his earthly ministry and his fulfillment of the Holy Scriptures. It was the religion of the Pharisees (and any other man-devised system of connecting with the Almighty) that he came to abolish with his very life.
When you get down to brass tacks—Jesus is the Gospel and Jesus is about setting us free. And since I have been outlining what freedom is and what it isn’t (the Gospel shouts Freedom! after all)—I figured it would be fitting to share Driscoll’s list while we are taking the time to expose the fallacies of religion that are constantly at work to undermine the message of freedom.
Religion says, ‘If I obey God, God will love me.’ Gospel says, ‘Because God love me, I can obey.’
Religion has good people and bad people. Gospel has only repentant and unrepentant people.
Religion values a birth family. Gospel values a new birth.
Religion depends on what I do. Gospel depends on what Jesus has done.
Religion claims that sanctification justifies me. Gospel claims that justification enables sanctification.
Religion has the goal to get from God. Gospel has the goal to get to God.
Religion sees hardships as punishment for sin. Gospel sees hardship as sanctified affliction.
Religion is about me. Gospel is about Jesus.
Religion believes appearing as a good person is the key. Gospel believes that being honest is the key.
Religion has an uncertainty of standing before God. Gospel has certainty based on Jesus’ work.
Religion sees Jesus a the means. Gospel sees Jesus as the end.
Religion ends in pride or despair. Gospel ends in humble joy.
As Driscoll so explicitly points out, the Gospel of freedom Jesus embodies and the religion he came to expose are at polar ends of the spectrum—they are at diabolical odds with each other.
Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified. (Galatians 5:23b-24, The Message Bible)
The prince of darkness is a gentleman.
-William Shakespeare, King Lear (Edgar at III, iv)
A friend of mine was telling me tonight about her aunt who is in town visiting from California this week. Her aunt has a friend out there in the Golden State who knew a lady who was going about her business at her local high-end modern-day fruit stand—one of those organic shrines I’m guessing. The market has a penchant for these big over-sized bins of fresh cilantro. Not realizing the hidden danger that lurked in the piles of green, the lady went ahead and dug down to get her share only to draw her hand back up in surprise as she was pinched by something—so she thought. She suddenly felt queasy, excused herself, and went out to her vehicle. Her husband became concerned ten minutes later when she didn’t return and went out to check on her only to find her—dead. She had been bitten by an Arizona Black Rattlesnake without even knowing it.
It got the writer in me thinking, as is the case twenty-three hours a day. Religion is both respectable and poisonous. It’s venom can go undetected, is fast working and kills it’s victim quickly. And the strange thing is how much so religion is able to grab hold of our hearts without our even realizing it’s happening. What I find fascinating if not alarming is that we are all not only susceptible to it—we are prone to it.
We’re drawn to religion much like the waves are drawn to the shore. It is both naive and foolish to pretend we aren’t.
Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better than to catch you napping. (1 Peter 5:8, The Message Bible)
Being bitten by the terrible killer snake himself can happen to any one of us—it’s only a matter of time when we become lazy in remaining solely dependant upon the grace of Christ which is the sure and proven antidote in opposing the forces of religion upon our own hearts.
Elizabeth Browning was on to something when she said The devil’s most devilish when respectable. We just miss him all wrapped up in the cloak of religion—that’s all I am saying.
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