Outrageous Grace

Grace.

 

My first thoughts when I hear the word grace are of forgiveness and second chances and 'how sweet the sound'.  But they're quiet, unassuming, gentle ideas.  'Grace' conjures up someone who is just too nice, someone who is slow to anger and quick to forgive.

 

It is a sanitised, domesticated, safe word.

 

But it is not what God means by 'grace'.

 

Yes, God is slow to anger, quick to forgive and quick to love.  But His grace is also outrageous.  It is offensive and provocative and unbelievable.

 

It doesn't make sense.  It doesn't add up.  It isn't fair.

 

Those who are 'good' are no more entitled to it than those who are worse than the worst.  It has nothing to do with us and everything to with Jesus.  It is free for those who want it.  It is available to Christians, Atheists, 'good' people, charity workers, those in need of charity, the homeless, teachers, the uneducated, doctors, the sick, lawyers, law-breakers, children, adults, men, women.  It is available to all who want it.

 

It can't be bought, it can't be fathomed, it can't be exhausted.

 

I love this verse in Romans which describes it:

"Sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace.  When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down.  All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it.  Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end."

 

[Romans 5:20-21 MSG]

 

The aggressive forgiveness we call grace.

 

Grace is not gentle, or softly-spoken.  It does not tiptoe around the edge of awkward situations.  It does not turn its back on our sin.

 

Instead, it plunges into our chaotic, sinful mess and invites us into life - deep, fulfilled, whole, true, eternal life.

 

Perhaps instead of singing John Newton's famous hymn, we should sing,

 

Outrageous grace

How fierce the sound

That saved a wretch like me.

 

 

The Beauty Of Snow

It finally snowed!

 

And snowed and snowed and snowed and snowed and snowed.

 

I got up at 5 to check this morning and was delighted with the sight.

 

I absolutely love the snow.  I love the scrunching crunch of it under your feet as you walk.  I love that it slows the world down and gives us the chance to relax and reflect.  I love how quiet and hushed everything becomes, how everything is muted.  I love that it brings people together to build snowmen and have snowball fights. 

 

But most of all, I love how beautiful the world looks when it is covered in a thick layer of soft snow.

 

Wilhelmina in Ugly Betty says,

 

"Snow is a magical blanket, it hides what's ugly and makes everything beautiful."

 

Snow can make even the ugliest of sights look beautiful.  There is a huge, towering scrap yard a few roads away from my flat, which usually looks pretty monstrous.  But today, even that was transformed into something magical.

 

The Bible describes God's grace as being like snow:

 

 

         "This is God’s Message:
         'If your sins are blood-red,
         they’ll be snow-white.
         If they’re red like crimson,
         they’ll be like wool.'"

 

         [Isaiah 1:18 MSG]

But rather than just covering over the ugliness of life, and hiding it for a while, as snow does, God's grace transforms everything it touches.  So that when it melts away, what is left is more beautiful than before.

All The Broken Pieces

I know very little about computers. 

I wouldn't say I'm quite at the "turn-it-off-and-then-on-again" end of the scale (you know, the sort who resorts to a good old reboot whenever there's any kind of problem), but I am not far off.

I have, however, over my time noticed one or two things that I wish were applicable to life.  For example, how many times have you had "Ctrl+z" moments?  Moments where you wish with everything in you that it was physically possible to "undo" whatever you have just said or done. 

I experience them rather frequently.

Another thing I have picked up on my technological travels is "Defragmenting" ("Defragging" to those in the know).  I find this process of sifting and sorting, colour-coding and categorising rather satisfying to watch.  What starts off as a muddled mess of different files and scrappy bits of data is soon collected and regrouped. 

Order is restored.

I sometimes wish that I could "Defrag" my head and my heart too - pick out all of my thoughts and feelings and experiences and sift through them and group them together to make some sort of sense of it all.  Then I could see what I really have inside of me and what I want to keep and what I want to send to the "Recycling Bin."

Sometimes I feel as though I have begun this process, but have got stuck half-way through: I have got all of the pieces out to start sorting through them, but haven't completed the task.  I have felt overwhelmed, or have run out of time, or have felt like I will never finish.

But I am learning that I probably never will finish the process.  Not because I have accumulated so many "files" and there is too much to sort through, but because, as I sort and sift through the different pieces of "data", new ideas and experiences and feelings are being added all the time.  And they will continue to be added every day for the rest of my life.

Life is an ongoing process of sifting and sorting and saving and filtering and filing and formatting and recycling and reusing and developing and discarding and starting the process all over again ...

But I don't have to do it by myself.

"God made my life complete when I placed all the pieces before him."

[Psalm 18:20, MSG]

"And that's the beauty of this grace

It can put the pieces back in place

And shine reflections of forgiveness

In a million different ways."

[Matthew West: All the Broken Pieces]

Good Enough for Grace

Everyone knows that the one question any good Santa should ask a child is whether they have been "good" over the past year.  And if the answer is yes, the result is presents.  Lots of presents.  The unspoken understanding is that the child deserves presents for their good behaviour.  The silent equation is goodness = gifts.

But how often do we apply the same mentality to God and His grace as well?

I realised recently that my understanding of grace was limited: I have always known and believed that grace is a gift, and by definition, not something that I could 'purchase'/acquire myself.  However, a line in a song by Tenth Avenue North stopped me in my tracks the other day and got me thinking.

"Why are you striving these days?
Why are you trying to earn grace?"

I noticed the Father Christmas mentality I sometimes adopt when it comes to grace: grace is a gift given to those who are trying to be good.  We would be fooling ourselves to think that any of us were really "good", but God is more interested in our efforts and honours those who try to do good.

Now, don't get me wrong, God does delight in our efforts to please Him and to follow His word by loving Him and loving others.  But this has nothing to do with grace.  Grace has nothing to do with me or with anything that I do or don't do.  My efforts at 'religion' or 'Christianity', my church attendance, my enjoyment of church, my Bible-reading habits, my prayer life, my thought life etc. have no effect on grace.

 "For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything."

 [Galatians 5:4, MSG]

Grace is God's undeserved and unearned forgiveness and love, which He has given to us freely through Jesus.

But this seems too good to be true and doubt creeps in.  Like the serpent in the Garden of Eden we ask: "Did God really say..."   Did God really say His grace was enough?  Did He really say His grace would cover anything?  Even that?

So we doubt, and we set to work establishing a back-up plan, just in case God changes His mind.  We work at being good, just in case we find ourselves faced with the question "Have you been good this year?"

We put limits on grace and restrictions on God's power. We believe that we aren't good enough for grace. And that is precisely the point: we are not, and never will be, 'good enough' for grace. To be good enough at once cancels out the need for grace.  And our efforts to add anything to it eliminate the possibility of grace. It is either grace or it is works. It cannot be both.

"If by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace."

[Romans 11:6, NIV]

There are no limits or restrictions or standards or prerequisites for grace.  There is nothing too "bad" or "sinful" that it cannot be covered by God's grace.

 "But where sin increased, grace increased all the more."

[Romans 5:20, NIV]

You can't outdo grace.

Grace finds me when I'm in the pig-sty, filthy and covered in mud.  Grace finds me when I'm far from home and I've forgotten where I belong.  Grace finds me and beckons me when I have nothing to offer.  And when I return, grace flings its arms around me and welcomes me home.


Because in the end, it's all about grace.