Re-learning Grace

A book that I have been reading, called "Follow the Fire" has some fantastic things to say on grace (among other things) and what many people perceive grace as.

"Many people still define grace as God saving us from our wrong choices, but that is forgiveness, not grace. Thank God for forgiveness but grace is something different.
The biblical picture of grace is this: God in action, choosing & empowering a people who don't deserve a thing so that they can be His faithful servants.
Grace allows people to do what they don't deserve to do. Grace is the power to be what we don't deserve to be and to go where we don't deserve to go - all at God's command."

"There is a profound misunderstanding of grace in the church today. Grace is not God's overlooking of sin & wickedness. It is His favor coming to people who don't deserve it. Grace is not to be used as a cover-up for people who bear no fruit, but as the power to do things for God that, as former sinners, we don't deserve to do.
In our society, most people want a gospel with no demands or expectations, and so we use grace as a shield to keep us from sold-out loyalty. A professing Christian who does not want to live like a soldier of God can invoke grace as his ticket out."

The author goes on to talk about grace being a two-way street, God giving us the opportunity but us needing to grab hold of THAT opportunity.

"We all understand that Jesus set aside the Old Covenant for the New Covenenant and that we now live under grace. But do we ever consider what our part of the covenant of grace is? Religion likes to present Jesus' side of the covenant as absolute and our side as open for consideration. We have developed the idea that being saved by grace gives us the right to be a nonparticipant in the kingdom of God."

The illustration given by Pastor is of our own marriages. Would you like to be married to someone who views the covenant of marriage the same way they do their covenant with Christ? He gives us this an example: "Can you imagine being a wife who cleans, cooks, washes the clothes and takes care of every need while your husband leaves the home for days on end and merely pitches in perhaps on a weekend?" (This is the kind of relationship most people tell me I am supposed to have by telling me that I am over-the-top or being extreme. This is the kind of relationship most Christians show the world as the example by being "Sunday only Christians".

In this book, it is explained that grace is not something new with the coming of the New Testament. Jesus didn't invent grace. "They have accepted the idea that the Law came first and then grace. This is not so. Abraham was chosen by grace. He did not deserve to be chosen and did not earn the right. Israel was chosen by grace. The people of Israel did not deserve God's grace. King David sinned, but he remained king by grace. Grace has always been God's hand extended to an undeserving people."

I have heard a lot of people say things like "The teller missed that big bag of potatoes at the bottom of our cart, by the grace of God," or have told me that it is perfectly all right for them to do something that isn't correct, say gossiping for example, and that they don't have to try to change because they are covered by God's grace. That's not grace; that's thinking we are getting away with something we shouldn't be getting away with. Go back and pay for those potatoes. I have. Wait and see the reaction you get when you walk back into a store to pay for something you realize was mistakenly not charged to you. It is such an example to people (and I type this for myself to remember as much as I type this for you to read. I know that I have been guilty of thinking that I have gotten away with stuff by accident so it was ok, in the past.)

I have heard Christians talk about how they feel they can live however they want, say whatever they want and do whatever they want because they are covered by God's grace and that just isn't the case (they can be forgiven for those things should they repent & turn from them but that is not grace. Remember the definition of grace from above?
"The biblical picture of grace is this: God in action, choosing & empowering a people who don't deserve a thing so that they can be His faithful servants.
Grace allows people to do what they don't deserve to do. Grace is the power to be what we don't deserve to be and to go where we don't deserve to go - all at God's command.")

The fact of the matter is that God does make demands of us; He doesn't intend for us to just do whatever we want and He will be fine with it. If we don't meet those demands there will be & are implications. It is clearly laid out for us in Matthew. A tree that doesn't bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire (Mt 3:10) and that if we lose our saltiness, we are good only to be thrown in the street and tampled on by men (Mt 5:13).

I will finish with this for now because I could probably carry on about the entire book.

"How can God justify His demands on our lives? Through His grace! Grace has been given to empower an undeserving people. Grace doesn not remove demands. It increases them."

"Follow the Fire" written by Pastor Steve Gray.