Embracing Grace

  Grace is such a beautiful word. It's a word that is spoken by poets, lovers, theologians and the broken. It's meaning though is often misapplied and misunderstood, is the basis for all the virtues of life. The grace of God is as the famous song tells us plainly, 'amazing'.

  God knowing who we are.... and being who he is, knows that apart from his choosing to pour out his favor on our lives, we would have no hope. We desperately need all the unmerited favor that God has to offer us in this often tragic drama we call life.

  For those who have been humbled and broken enough to see their need of grace, there is a deep vein in heaven full of the river of grace. When we cry out from the center of our souls, God meets us with all that he is. Grace is a river fillled with the fullness of God's person and power for life.

  Tragically, grace has its imitators. For many people grace is a 'work' to be imitated and faked by a lifestyle of outward conformity without inward transformation. For the 'grace fakers' it's all about the do.... the actions which can be imitated for exterior show and human rewards. The realites of grace are never known without an inward new birth. We have to 'die' to our own attempts at religiosity and appearances to receive the miracle of new life.... the grace life.

  For many of us the opinions of others rule supreme in our decisions, desires and ultimately our destinies. We are so insecure that we can never fully grasp the liberating freedom of amazing grace. We choose to remain in the 'outer court' of religious conformity.... we know nothing of radical trust, intimacy and healing. If Jesus is not at the center of our soul we ensure our bondage and imprisonment to a cheap imitator....fake grace.

  After Jesus rose from the dead he confronted a wavering disciple, Peter. Peter had always struggled with relationship. He was intensely jealous of John's intimacy with Christ. Jesus didn't scold him for what he hadn't done.... for how he had betrayed and left him..... no, Jesus called Peter back to grace....back to relationship. In John 21: 15-19 we see an amazing interchange between the risen Jesus and Peter. Jesus wanted to know one primary thing from Peter, "Do you love me?"

There is no deeper reality of grace than to experience and relish the love of God. If love is our aim....our center.....our everything, then grace has done its deepest work in our hearts.

  When we fake grace we look for our identity in what we do for God.... we want titles and recognition...more than we want God himself. Jesus wanted Peter not to do for him primarily..... no Jesus wanted Peter to be with him, "Follow Me!" were Jesus final words of this dramatic conversation. The God of the universe.... the God of all grace is calling you and me to himself. We need to stop faking grace.

Jim