Grounded by Grace

grace
noun /grās/ 

The free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings [in Christian belief]

If grace was a color, what color would it be? Brown? Yellow? Red? Green? I can tell you I have no idea. Grace has no favourites; grace relates with all, befriends all and knows no boundaries, I believe. Undeserved favor, it has been called. It reaches out to touch the seemingly most undeserving; it balances the beam. Grace does not discriminate. When I think of grace, I don’t even know where to begin. I would hate to try to define it or explain exactly what it is for fear of putting it in a box or cropping it’s vastness with my limited comprehension. Even when I think I understand it, I know I have to think again and again, and then think some more.

A search for truth has led me to points where I have had to face the issue of grace head-on. I read somewhere that you can only love Jesus as much as you love the person you love the least. That statement just brought my so-called super-christian portfolio down a considerable notch and almost had me on the defensive. See, it takes a lot to get out of your comfort zone to love the person you don’t think very highly of [we all have that person or two]; to love them or extend your hand to them; give them a moment of your time; or present them with a gift you ordinarily wouldn’t give them. It takes a good amount of mental strength sometimes to not discriminate.

On Tolerance

How would you ordinarily treat a murderer, a pedophile, a thief? How would you treat an adulterer or a prostitute? How would you [and this goes especially to the men] treat a homosexual? If you met them on the street in need of food and you were in a position to provide or if they were being persecuted for their beliefs, how would you treat them? Would you defend them? Would you turn a blind eye? Would you beat them with the Bible? How would you treat a Muslim or a Mormon? How would you treat someone different from you if they needed your assistance or support?

Many times grace has been mistaken for a pocket or catalyst of liberalism or secularism; things of the “can’t we all just get along?” fame. Where Christians who have stood up to take care of ill prostitutes or fed an adulterer or pedophile have been met with criticism and threats of doom in hell. Interesting thing [and I have seen this myself] is that the first and the harshest critics are the Christians themselves. Yet we claim to know the author of love and the very definition of grace itself. We are the first ones to cast stones and sometimes we throw proverbial bibles as hard and cruel as stones themselves – these people still get hit and bruised in the head. Again I ask, Love, where is your fire?

Love’s Fire, Grace’s Fuel

Jesus healed the woman with the issue of blood, He approached corpses, lepers and tax collectors hanging out in trees. He carried little children, took the time to speak to a woman who had had 5 husbands [5, my goodness!], He washed the feet of His followers and defended a prostitute who washed his feet with her hair and a bottle of perfume. Jesus lifted the head of a woman who was about to be stoned for committing adultery and while He was hanging on the cross, probably scared out of His mind, He gave hope to a dying man; a thief who hang next to Him. The issue of grace is a thing of humility too.

He taught and preached against sin yet He sat with and held the sinner, healed and made them whole knowing full well, the possibility and inevitability of betrayal in His time and ours as well. He healed all kinds of aches – of the heart and of the body. He did not discriminate from the lieutenant to the beggar by the street, He took time to give of Himself. Jesus did not compromise what He believed even as He did all these things. The issue of grace is a thing of wisdom and self-sacrifice.

The issue of grace is a thing of love; it is a thing of virtue; and it is a thing of respect among so many others. Like I said, I would hate to even try to define it because just like love, it is all encompassing – it seeps through the cracks to mend and reach the far and broken places. What keeps me hanging on even with the questions surrounding my faith are the things such as these: Grace and Love.

They are indeed great forces to reckon with; but just like gravity, they keep us grounded.

This post has been inspired by a book I am currently reading - What’s So Amazing About Grace? by Phillip Yancey