grace

Don’t be Selfish with Grace

~ ForCommonGround ~ 2 Comments

grace

If someone in your life did something wrong, would you be a person they’d want to come to? What if they had done something to you personally? Grace is not ours to withhold. Doing so communicates a message about Jesus that He is enough to forgive my sin but not enough for me to forgive yours.  The power to forgive, found in Christ, can be applied to all situations. To argue the contrary is to say that our hurt is worth more than the souls of humanity. Christ died for our souls in the face of our hate and rebellion and sin. What do we have to do in order to forgive someone of their debt? We certainly don’t have to be beaten, have nails driven through our wrists and feet, or hang to death on a cross. Jesus endured all that so that those who choose Him can have every wrong erased permanently. I’m not saying that grace is always easy, but it is necessary. No one could ever wrong us more than we’ve wronged God. To show grace is to show others a glimpse of God. To show grace is tell others that Jesus’ sacrifice is real and powerful and life-changing.

So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

Colossians 3:12-14 (The Message)

 

Dishonoring Grace

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Jonah was a prophet, called to proclaim God’s pending judgement on sin in a place called Nineveh. They were the worst of the worst in the world. They were comparable to the likes of Atilla the Hun or the Third Reich of Nazi Germany. They were bad bad bad. Once Jonah actually showed up to deliver the message here was their response: 

The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

Jonah 3:6-10 ESV

Why don’t we repent as fiercely as the Ninevites? Have we lost touch with the weight of our sin? Have we forgotten what it cost to purchase our forgiveness? Have we reduced repentance to a simple prayer? Have we refused to allow repentance to cost us something? Forgiveness may be free, but repentance should cost us much!  

Following King David’s major screw ups, a plague was falling on Israel. This was happening because of David’s sin. It was in the wake of sin that David wrote the heartfelt words of Psalm 51. Its more of a plea on behalf of a man who knows he has sinned against God and knows how severe that is. As part of David’s acts of repentance, he goes to build an altar to the Lord and make sacrifices. The owner of the land that King David is meant to build the altar on offers to give the king the land for free. Here is David’s response:

“But the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.”

‭‭2 Samuel‬ ‭24:24‬ ‭ESV‬‬

The king knew that his repentance should cost him and so should ours. Repentance is not feeling ashamed of what we’ve done and asking for forgiveness. Repentance is a brokenness that can only be put back together after the broken pottery (us) have surrendered themselves to the Master Potter (God). Repentance is an end of one thing and the beginning of a whole new thing. That new beginning can’t come until the broken see the need to be fixed. No one can really repent of something they don’t think is sin. And no one will think that sin is that bad if they forget the excruciating pain that Yeshua went through for the cause of our redemption. Sin tore His skin with the lashes, drove the nails through the wrists and feet, and pressed the crown of thorns into our Savior’s skull. How could we ever treat our sin so lightly? To do so dishonors the grace we’ve been shown by God. 

Cleaning with a dirty rag

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dirty-rag-by-paul-simpson

I’ve been blessed these last five years to have a Window Washing business that provides my family with a little extra well-needed cash throughout the year. I’ve cleaned a lot of different types of filth off of windows during that time. You’d be amazed at what people allow their windows to look like…During one window job I had an epiphany. I know what you’re thinking: how enlightening can washing windows really be. Well on this occasion it happened to be very inspiring so I’d like to share it with you.

On this day I happened to be doing the windows on this gigantic house. If I lived in a house this size I wouldn’t want to clean my windows either. We’re talking like a 5-6 hour job here with professional equipment. So as the job went on I noticed that it was becoming more and more difficult to get the windows streak and smudge free. I would clean out my gear fairly regularly to ensure that I wasn’t transposing dirt from one window to the next, but after a while that didn’t seem to help. It began to be frustrating. I was getting so close to the end of the job but I wanted to make sure my last window got as clean as my first. It was starting to take a long time just to complete each window.

Then it hit me. I had a super stubborn smudge that would not come out no matter which part of the shammy I used. Each wipe just spread the smudge in a different direction. I just cleaned this shammy too so why wasn’t it doing the job it was designed for? Then a spiritual bomb got dropped on me. “A dirty and used rag, no matter how clean I try to get it, will never be good enough. The rag has to be new.” If you’re familiar with the teaching of Christ you probably have an idea of where this is going.

If you’ve ever used a shammy to clean before you know that no matter how much you clean it, there is still residue from previous uses. There are stains that won’t come out no matter the method of cleaning. Shammies are designed to suck up moisture and clean better than most anything else. They work so well that this can be their downfall as well. My point is, that people and shammies are very similar. We have been designed by our Creator to be so efficient, creative, intelligent, strong, funny, and so much more. Psalm 139:14 says that we have been fearfully and wonderfully made by God and Ephesians 2:10 tells us that we are God’s workmanship (handiwork/masterpiece). God made each of us for a purpose and equipped us to carry out that purpose way more so than a shammy. But the similarities continue. We are all stained from life…from choices…from sin. And no matter how much we try to clean ourselves, those stains remain. Many of those stains are outwardly obvious and others are below the surface just like the ‘stuff’ held in the fibers of the shammy. We try to purify ourselves by being good, following lists, avoiding bad things, believing in ourselves, reading self help books, listening to motivational speakers, achieving high accomplishments, making money, buying nice things, keeping a smile on our faces, and so much more. All of these things are simply a facade without heart surgery. No matter how good we are in life, our goodness is like a filthy rag compared to the pure holiness of God. Our scars/stains will always affect those around us as well just like my dirty shammy was just smearing the glass. The only way for me to get those windows clean…the only way to be clean ourselves…is to be made new.

Second Corinthians 5:17 tells us that everyone who is in Christ is a new creation. Jesus Christ removes the deepest stains in anyone’s lives. God promises to erase any stain and purify anyone who calls on His name and receives forgiveness through Christ. Just check out Isaiah 1:18. God goes on to tell us in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that Christ, the Holy and Perfect One, died so that we might have the righteousness of God. So our filthy rag becomes a spotless garment pure as the driven snow. So my plea to anyone reading this, who battles with deep seeded scars, struggling to mask pain and hurts from life, if you don’t know Jesus Christ, today is your day. In Him is healing…in Him all things become new…in Him is rest and peace. No formula in life will ever work outside of Christ. Everything else is just cleaning with a dirty rag. And lets be honest, every day we get our shammy dirty in some way and Jesus is the only way to remove it.

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

Lamentations 3:22-23 (ESV)