GRAPPLING WITH GRACE

Grace is a tough concept to lay hold of.   FOR THE SAKE OF THE WORLD, WE HAVE TO!   If we are to continue our study into the Kingdom of God, we have to understand this cornerstone of our faith.  No other religion in the world has a concept that approaches Grace’s purpose, meaning, or application.  Grace erases all human effort, and makes a mockery of man’s feeble efforts toward reconciliation with his Creator. All ‘works’ based religions are man’s effort to undo the effects of the tree of knowledge of good, and evil.   

The poison of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good, and evil, isn’t the propensity to kill, lie, steal, or destroy.  Those are just the symptoms of the poison. The poison of Adam’s one act of rebellion, was the idea that we could do something to be more like God than we already were.  Adam, and every successive generation have ‘fallen’ short of the ‘glory’ of God, through vain efforts at trying to please God.  Our best effort is to hide from him, at which point He seeks us out.  Throughout the history of mankind, God has asked every soul, “Where are you?”   Even though the all knowing, all seeing creator knew precisely where we were hiding, He asks the question so that we will have to admit to ourselves what we’ve done.  It doesn’t matter if  you’re agnostic, atheistic, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, or any host of other religions, you are hiding.  You are separated from the source of all life, God, the Creator.  The sad part is; you wouldn’t care if someone hadn’t told you.  Every successive generation since Adam has lost touch with the Creator.  We can’t comprehend how strong His desire is to reunite us to Himself.  We have no idea of the love He has for us.  We can’t fathom the depth of His passion toward us.  Men have hidden themselves so well, for so long, they’ve almost forgotten or replaced the Creator, which doesn’t change the fact that we are standing naked, completely exposed before him.  We may think we’ve escaped Him, but he knows exactly where we are.   Some atheists may say; If God is real why doesn’t he reveal Himself to us.  HE DID, and we still chose to sin. Whether he revealed Himself to Adam, through Moses, through angels, or eventually His only Son, seeing Him is not enough.  Faith, the one thing we lost in the garden of Eden, is the only way we can ‘see’ him.  Doubt is the poison that kills us.  The poison of sin is strong, but not strong enough. Our self-loathing, guilty hearts still beat with a desire to be one with God, so that when we do glimpse Him, we respond out of our own efforts.  Sadly, our best efforts are usually a ‘works’ oriented religion that only serves to separate us from Him more.  The harder we work, the more disappointed we become.  We begin to doubt, and we are ashamed again. 

That is why Jesus is so critical to our salvation.  He IS God’s solution.  The problem was never that other religions weren’t recognizing God, it is in how those religions approach Him.  We are tricked once again, into believing there is something we can do to ‘earn’ our way back into His good ‘graces.’   Then we go about this stupid cycle of avoiding what is evil, trying to do endless stupid acts of meaningless religious repetition, feeding Him food we’ve grown, offering smoke from wood He created, killing animals for Him, even offering up our children to Him.

FAIL!!!!!!!

Jesus is God’s Grace.  He is the image we were made in, and He is the image we can become, if we believe.  That is why Jesus never used the word Grace while he was on this earth.  He simply said, “ I Am the way, the truth, and the life.”  

I asked our men to do a word study on Grace, and then come up with their own definition of what Grace is. Here are some of their definitions, but I am going to change them up with one little addition, where the men used the word Grace, I’ve substituted Jesus.  You’ll have to trust me, they didn’t know I was going to do this.

Jesus is gracious in manner, overcoming sin.  Jesus is spiritual, divine, and the provision for favor, success, and deliverance.  Jesus is the invitation to abide, and be welcome in the Presence of God.  Jesus is God’s revelation of Himself, with freedom to live for God, freed from the bondage of sin.  One of our younger members said; Grace (Jesus) is the ability to see God for who He really is.  Jesus is the power to do what we can’t do ourselves. Jesus is LOVE.  Jesus is the culmination of all good things, the all inclusive.  Jesus is the strength to keep going, and to trust.  Jesus is getting what we don’t deserve.  Jesus is the power to overcome, and succeed.  There you have it, our definitions of Grace except for the one that the world has come to embrace. 

Jesus is God’s unmerited favor.  I say ‘is,’ because He is alive, and those who believe into Him are alive ‘in’ Him.  I don’t care how many fancy little sayings we create to express Him, Jesus is the Grace of God.  Once we are alive in Him, we are no longer naked.  Our shame is covered, our sins forgiven, and we are born from above.  We become what we were intended to be from Adam, a child of God.  Jesus is the Grace of God.  Removing Jesus as the definition of God’s Grace has made it easy for the evil one to divide and split the church over the definition.  I’ll say it one more time, Jesus is God’s Grace.  Jesus wanted to do more than demolish sin, ruin death, and make us right with God, He restored HIS spirit in us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

KNOCKED OVER!!!!!  The game of trying to knock down our sins, and win the fluffy prize of eternal life is over.

Oh, and for my definition; Jesus is the abiding authority, and power to do God’s stuff on the earth. 

WOW!  This was fun!