“There’s story of an old slave round these parts,” I begin.

Big round eyes shine with anticipation and I know that everyone loves a good story. “Now this was back when the Confederacy thought they could up and remove themselves from the Union. But anyhow, this one old slave was freed. And when his former master died, he left that slave everything he had. It amounted to a little over $50,000.”

And since I’m an accountant, I like numbers and I’ve looked up what that means in today’s dollars. “That’s like someone giving you over one. million. dollars.”

{What would you do if someone up and left you a million bucks!?}

“So the man was notified of his inheritance and the money was placed in the bank for him.

“Except months went by and he hadn’t withdrawn any money. So the banker went to give him a visit. He explained that he had $50,000 dollars available for his withdrawal and the old slave, who had no understanding of what that meant, asked, “Well Sir, do you think I can have 50 cents to buy a sack of corn meal?”

Children with the understanding of that slave stare back at me and I have to explain in the simplest of terms the difference between 50 cents and 50,000 dollars.

And I feel it in my bones, how Christians know a lot about the value of money …  but we don’t necessarily know so much about the incomparable worth of grace.

I’m mean, sure, we’ve been notified of our inheritance and we know that the righteousness of Christ was “credited” to our account. We know that grace means “unmerited favor.” We can give little acronyms and we talk a whole lot about justification and we can even pitch a celebration service for the $50,000 worth of grace in our spiritual bank… but that deposit was meant to be drawn upon.

That righteousness credited to our account wasn’t meant to sit there, it was meant to be drawn down upon, time and time again.

Like when a friend does you straight up wrong, it’s meant to draw down righteousness in the form of forgiveness. There are sufficient funds to give a blessing for a curse.

And when the sometimes selfish husband makes unreasonable demands, there are sufficient funds to grace him with kindness and nourish him with love.

And when the children wear and demand and it feels like you just have absolutely nothing left to give, there are sufficient funds credited to your account. Funds to give sacrificially and generously and joyously.

And when the trials blow hard against the soul, there are sufficient funds to stand strong and persevere and get back up.

Yes. This is the grace-oriented life.

Grace was never meant to simply be defined. It wasn’t meant to be acknowledged. It was meant to be drawn upon.

And what if we really lived like this?

It could be the greatest break-through of our lives.

There’s story of another slave even more insightful. This slave owed his master. In fact, his debt had accumulated to a sum of millions. There was absolutely no possible way the slave could ever pay the debt, not in several lifetimes.

So this slave was called to account. His master told him it was time to pay up. Since he couldn’t pay, he and his wife and children would be sold to pay for the debt. The slave begged for mercy. “Just give me a little more time and I will pay everything.”

The slave asked for a certain type of forgiveness. He asked for “makrothumason: an extension of time, a delay.”

Makrothumason requires continual striving, working, performing, achieving. This is what the slave assumed he *might* have a chance at receiving.

But the Master was moved with compassion and He granted full and complete removal of the debt. He marked the debt paid in full.

It was a glorious day, to be granted full pardon! Yet the slave, not realizing he was completely forgiven, thought he still had to go around collecting from others who owed him. He was still thinking in terms of makrothumason.

He saw someone who owed him a small sum, grabbed him and started choking him to exact payment.

And maybe we fail in our efforts to live the grace-oriented life because we make the same wrong assumption. Instead of drawing down on the inexhaustible supply of sufficient grace, we feel we can’t absorb a wrong-doing. We can’t afford to be generous. We can’t give a blessing for a curse. We just don’t have what it takes.

We don’t understand grace in terms of full provision. So we exact debts from husbands, friends, children, ourselves, because we don’t understand the grace credited to our account, the righteousness and provision of Christ. There are sufficient funds.

Yes, we have a good theology of grace. But do we live it? Is it in the gut, in the heart, in the reflexes? Is it reflected in our homes, our relationships, our “aroma?” Oh God, help us!

As this series comes to a close, it needs to be woven into the fiber of my being: Grace is full provision. At every moment, I can assume the bank account is credited beyond my ability to understand, there is no lack.

So this is grace -> always giving, believing, forgiving, nourishing, drawing on the inexhaustible resource that Christ has credited to our account.

Let’s live it, shall we? Let’s meet every challenge, each demand, every day of our lives with the assumption and from the standpoint of full provision. Let’s be disciples of grace.

May it be, friends. May it be.

So we keep on praying for you, asking our God to enable you to live a life worthy of his call. May he give you the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do. Then the name of our Lord Jesus will be honored because of the way you live, and you will be honored along with him. This is all made possible because of the grace of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ.

II Thessalonians 1:11-12

 

Other Posts in the “Grace” Series:

The One Must Have for Spiritual Growth

For Those Not Good Enough

Eating Grace

The Grace Feast

How Long Will You Put it Off?

**Linking with GraceLaced today

Dust layers the city in drab gray. Undercover, everything from tree leaves to bird’s nest begs for new life, pants for an awakening.

And on a dark winter morning that paired perfectly with those dirt laid-en leaves, the speaker encouraged us from II Timothy 2:1:

“You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”

Because sometimes you have dark and sometimes you have dirt and sometimes it’s all you can do to remember the bright color of spring. But even then, you always have grace.

We always, always have grace.

And since that first week of 2013, when the grime lay heavy and thick, I’ve practiced this. Eating grace. I’ve found others who have done it better and longer than I and I’ve mimicked moves.

From John Stott and words spoken in 1967:

“First, then, there is a call to be strong in grace. Timothy was weak; Timothy was timid. Yet he was called to a position of leadership in the church – and in an area in which Paul’s authority was rejected. It is as if Paul said to him, ‘Listen Timothy, never mind what other people say, never mind what other people think, never mind what other people do; you are to be strong. Never mind how shy you feel, never mind how weak you feel; you are to be strong.’

That is the first thing.

Second, you are to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. If the exhortation had simply been ‘be strong,’ it would have been absurd indeed. You might as well tell a snail to be quick or a horse to fly as to tell a weak man to be strong or a shy man to be brave.

But Paul’s calling Timothy to fortitude is a Christian and not a stoical exhortation. Timothy was not to be strong in himself. He was not just to grit his teeth and clench his fists and set his jaw. No, he was, as the Greek literally means, to be strengthened with the grace that is in Christ Jesus, to find his resources for Christian service not in his own nature but in the grace of Jesus Christ.”

And I get this, I can wrap my mind and heart around this and finally a way to be strong. I can eat grace.

For some reason it reminds me of the stick-thin woman I read in an interview once. “How long have you been modeling?” they asked her.

“For 26 years,” she said then added, “And for 26 years I’ve been hungry.” This woman who had found money and success and a wildly attractive body stayed hungry to do it.

We can starve as Christians. We can eat at many tables to get what we think we want. We can have success and find open doors and we can keep going back to the putrid or the seemingly innocent and we can be in pursuit of satisfaction in a hundred different ways. And we can be downright starving Christians.

There’s only one table a Christian can rightly eat at: Grace.

At that table, a Christian need not be hungry. I learn from another, John Piper. I know this desperation well and rejoice that it is common to us all, the filling of the soul comes at the altar of grace.

“I speak from some years of personal experience in these things; there are many mornings when feasting at the altar of grace is the only way I survive. Sometimes the breakfast of grace has to replace the breakfast of foods. When you are a leader, the heart must be strong. People turn to you for help; they need answers to hard questions; and comfort in the midst of grief; and guidance in perplexing decisions; and hope in the midst of discouragement; and an ear for their disappointments or even their anger; and a vision of God in the midst of darkness. The heart of a leader must be strong.

And so must yours. You are all ministers. And the glory of Christianity is that we have an altar – we have an old rugged cross. And there the Savior, Jesus Christ, serves inexhaustible helpings of grace. Do you want your heart to be strong? Do you want to be a strong person who has the resources to love each other, and take in strangers, and care for prisoners, and stay married or single and chaste, and not love money? Then stay close to the altar and eat and eat and eat again – the grace of God.

The only strength that really matters in life is the strength of heart that comes from feeding on grace and trusting in grace. All the way through life, it is not health and physical strength that God delights in. The Lord takes pleasure in those who hope in his grace (Psalm 147:11). And when we come to die, no food and no diet will matter at all. One thing will matter: are we nourished at the altar of grace?

 You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. 2 Timothy 2:1

Grace is this invitation, to let weakness and inability and failure and yes, even sin, drive us to the table of Christ. The only altar that can fill us and we can let grace awaken new life. It is God’s power to transform us from weak and timid to strong and exemplary.

The grace-shaped life is the one who runs not from her inadequacy; but from her inadequay runs to Christ.

She eats at the table of grace.

The healthy don’t need a physician and the self sufficient don’t need grace. But if you find yourself lacking, oh there is great provision!

Today, one thing matters: are we nourished at the altar of grace? Will we serve, cook, clean, love, smile, live from the strength of grace?

Pull up a chair. Slurp it, drink it, daintly chew it or clumsily shovel it. Just get grace in.

{More next week on exactly “how”…}

Also from this series:

All posts in the “Grace” Series:

The One Must Have for Spiritual Growth

For Those Not Good Enough

Eating Grace

The Grace Feast

It is Sunday morning and services have concluded. The big people stand outside the church doors talking all things theological. It’s just what they do Sunday after church. And the little people play in the grassy church lot that doubles as parking.

I’m one of those little people, barely four years old. Michelle Carver runs up to me and pushes me into the scratchy Florida pompus grass. Buried underneath the long painful strands of grass lurkes an ant bed. I’m an unwelcome intruder who stays too long and the ants are obliged to inform me of my error.

I emerge from the grass mad as the firestone the preacher just spoke of. I run until my sights are on one unsuspecting Michelle Carver. I reach for her and can taste vengeance. The ant bites swell and burn on my legs and I bite back. In the soft flesh of her arm, I give Michelle Carver what she deserves.

She runs off towards the group of big people, screaming and crying like a banshee.

The big people are not happy.

“You need to teach your girl a lesson,” Michelle’s dad sternly tells mine. He’s got one eye on teeth marks and one disapproving eye on me and my dad.

So Dad walks me over to the oak sapling growing on the property. I’ve often wondered about that lone tree, wondered if it was planted just for the purpose of teaching me lessons. My dad selects a branch and gives me a good southern “switchin.”

Blow after blow, the streaks draw blood. While I cry and beg for mercy, the big people stand watching, arms folded, nodding their approval. The lashes continue until I’ve been put in my place and the big people are satisfied.

The switchin’ I received that day summarizes much of my church experience, and maybe yours too. I learned young that perhaps if I loathed myself enough, if I shamed and condemned and beat enough, if I tried hard and tried again, I would somehow one day be good enough.

The early experience out in the church yard did teach me a lesson. It thoroughly and erroneously taught me how to live the Christian life.

Even so, I am thankful for it! The Law is not bad, it is only limited. Every failure I’ve had trying to keep the Law actually did what it was supposed to do: point me to Christ.

Sisters (and brothers), the Bible is very plain and straight forward about this topic! There are two approaches to being good, no more and no less. (See Romans 10 and John 1:17 for two of the many references) There is the law. Or there is grace.

That’s it.

And the purpose of the Law is to show us that we need grace. Have you come to that point? Have you come to the fork in the road? Each and every one of us is on one of the two paths. If we are on the road marked “Law,” then our approach is self-effort. We work and perform at our own individual standards of “righteousness.”

If we are on the road marked “Grace,” however, our approach is faith in the goodness of God and the sufficiency of Christ’s finished work.

Sadly, many in the church are afraid of grace…afraid to preach it how it’s presented in the scriptures… afraid to be generous with it for fear of giving “license” to sin. That is because Our understanding of grace is under-developed.  So let’s state it plain: Grace is more than forgiveness. Grace is the power of God to do what human effort cannot.

If there was a single verse to use to summarize what the whole of Scriptures teach, it may very well be II Corinthians 9:8: Grace is God’s all sufficient power and provision granted to us at ALL times, in EVERY situation, to do every GOOD and righteous thing.

That’s why grace is described as “amazing!” There isn’t a single moment of your day that full, sufficient grace isn’t present.

Some of us need to understand the scope of Grace. It is the righteousness of God not only imputed to us but also imparted, on a moment by moment basis, every single day of our lives.

Be it mothering, ministering, loving an un-lovely, speaking in kindness, eating right, taking care of our bodies, and a thousand other right things, God’s provision for the practical outworking of every good deed in our lives is grace.

The grace-based approach to living is truly amazing!

Next week we will look at how to take grace and apply it in the moment.  But there is one last thing I’d like to close with. This is for the one who may be reading this, longing to make the switch from law to grace. Here are the scriptures that show us how:

“For they don’t understand God’s way of making people right with himself.
Refusing to accept God’s way, they cling to their own way of getting right with
God by trying to keep the law.”

~ Romans 10:3, NLT

First, understand that grace is the way God makes people right with Himself. It is an absolutely free, un-merited GIFT because God is Love.

Understand that embracing grace means letting go of your own self efforts to be right with God. You can’t double dip.

“Listen to Me, you who pursue righteousness,
you who seek the Lord:
Look to Abraham your father,
and to Sarah who gave birth to you in pain.”

~Isaiah 51:1-2

Secondly, follow the example of Abraham and pursue righteousness the same way he did: by faith in the grace of God.

“This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” Romans 3:22

“For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed–a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” Romans 1:17

“That I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the
law, but that which is through faith in Christ–the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.  Philippians 3:8-9

God simply wants us to believe His character as stated in the scriptures! He is who He says He is and He’s done what He says He’s done. He is good, kind, gracious, and loving enough to grant us full, abundant, free grace, every moment of our lives. Amazing, yes?!

My friend, whoever you may be, I invite you to lay down the rod. Maybe today finds you beating yourself up over your shortcomings and failures. Lay down the shame and condemnation and self-berating and take up the provision of grace. Accept the provision of God’s grace that doesn’t just forgive… it also teaches us how to live godly and self-controlled. It strengthens in weakness. It goes the distance and it is always there.

So live today… Graced.

All posts in the “Grace” Series:

The One Must Have for Spiritual Growth

For Those Not Good Enough

Eating Grace

The Grace Feast

Horns honk and buses emit poisonous fumes into the already polluted air as I hustle two children into the back of the taxi. We fight traffic all the way into town, cars backed up in ways possible only for a city home to 14 million people. After an hour and a half in the bouncing, swerving taxi, we finally arrive at the doctor’s office.

The young doctor calls us back and I explain to him why we are here. Little Bit has only grown 2 cm in the last 9 months. At almost six years old, she should be sprouting like a root, growing like a weed. She isn’t. Her growth has plateaued and prior tests say she’s got the bone age of a three year old. She’s not producing a growth hormone called IGF-1.

“We just really need to know what’s going on,“ I tell the doctor. What is behind this stunted growth? Is it genetic? Neurological? Biological? And do we treat it with synthetic hormones?

The question nags us: How can we get her to grow?

The doctor orders more tests. “This is complicated and there aren’t easy answers,” he tells me. In other words, this may be a very long journey.

We get home from the doctor and hang up jackets. I‘m tired. Shadows fall. The day is mostly gone and it is time for me to start dinner. I wonder if I’m making the most of my time, my life. Shuttling in taxis, sorting socks, checking homework, sharing Christ however I can… am I really making a difference?

My thoughts turn dark. At this point in my Christian life, I should have more spiritual authority in my life, I reason. I should carry a sense of spiritual blessing, spilling over onto others who pass my way. With so many lost and dying around me, and me having Living Water? I think about in my own home. I should be much slower to anger. My words should more often be a fountain of grace and life. My vision should be much greater, my faith more compelling, more transferable.

It strikes me, an unwanted chord: Could it be that I’m a spiritual Little Bit? I’ve plateaued. My spiritual growth is stunted and what is behind it?

I throw ingredients together in the Dutch oven and while the soup simmers and the bread bakes, I open a book. It’s what people like me do… between stirring the soup and setting the table, I read words. The book was randomly selected, so the words I read astonish me:

“I speak to you as babes in Christ.”

“We find in the Corinthians simply a condition of protracted infancy. It is quite right that at six months of age a babe should eat nothing but milk; but years have passed by and it remains in the same weakly state. Now this is just the condition of many believers. We come in contact with them and there is none of the beauty of holiness or of the power of God’s Spirit in them.”

“You have had the gospel so long that by this time you ought to be teachers, and yet you need that men should teach you…” Hebrews 5:12

Andrew Murray, The Master’s Indwelling

 

Soup simmers and children play and I do believe the words found their target in me. The Word becomes the physician, pinpointing the problem, giving the reason for my protracted infancy: “You’ve had the gospel…yet…”

Yes. For many years I’ve possessed what Paul describes as “the power of God.” It is no impotent thing. Yet does it lay un-used, un-applied in my daily living out?  Is it really the power of God, say, for my speech? My witness? My vision and faith? My parenting and wifery and intimacy? Is the gospel taken up…ingested… to the nourishment and growth of soul bones?

Can I really say the gospel is the power of God in my every day, moment to moment living?

Or have I relegated the gospel as beneficial primarily for the lost?

I reel. Do I even know what I’m doing?

When did I revert to the subtle ways of duty-living the Christian life instead of gospel-living it? When did my approach to the Christian life become a stack of Christian how-to books on the bedside table? An endless list of opinions and workbooks and should do’s and to do’s and empty guarantees?

The Word speaks again and I remember. Words spoken by Peter, one who grew in spurts and plateaus and flat-on-face falls. Yes, give me Peter. “Grow in Grace…” he instructed his readers.

And burly Peter takes me aside and speaks it plain. “It’s like this,” he says. “Grace = Growth.”  I admit it means something coming from one who knew a thing or two about the ups and downs, the ins and outs, the failures and successes of walking the Christ life.

Is not our struggling to live the Christian life really this, the struggle to embrace grace, in its moment by moment delivery?

The world can only relate to us in terms of the law, a system of earning and securing. It’s a system of working and achieving and proving our worth. It’s the way employers relate with employees and parents relate with children and the government with its citizens. Sadly, it is frequently how we function in the church, as believing people, this trial and error system of finding out what formula produces the most results.

But God offers an entirely different system of relating. He offers grace.

While the world presses us to relate according to its terms and conditions, God says it simple:  ”Grow in Grace.” This is the gospel. The gospel is in fact the grace of God. {Acts 20:24} And we never outgrow our desperate, pressing need for daily grace.

And as long as our approach to living the Christian life is a stack of how-to books on the bedside table, a study of Christian should’s and to-do’s, we will never see the growth we are desirous of, the growth we know is possible.

Grace = Growth. Thank you very much, Peter.

I’m thinking my life needs a new orientation, the orientation of grace.

This has been brewing inside for some time and it’s ready to find expression, this orientation of grace, this power-of-the-gospel living. So we begin a new series here on living from the orientation of grace.

It’s the way to spiritual growth. And what better day to start growing than today? 

You are humbly invited to grow with us? If this series can serve you? You may Subscribe here for updates via email.

 

All posts in the “Grace” Series:

The One Must Have for Spiritual Growth

For Those Not Good Enough

Eating Grace

The Grace Feast

The mat wasn’t meant to hold any significance. It was just a throw away, leftovers from a company gone bust. For years, the mat absorbed our grime and dirt. And for years I never paid it much mind. But over recent years it has come to hold hidden meaning in my life.

The Grace-mat.

You can read the Grace-Mat story here at Missional Women.

A personal note? It is such an honor to be a guest at Missional Women! This contributor blog is packed with great encouragement, practical helps, and every-day tools for living with purpose. If you are a woman, you won’t want to miss checking it out!