This word undoes me.
- Christine DiGiacomo
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
The other day I contrasted faithand'works' with faithandgrace. Was James saying one thing, and Paul, (arguably the best teacher after Jesus Christ) saying another? No, they were not.
But frankly, just the mention of grace stopped me in my tracks.
For by grace you have been saved.
It is not of your own doing, but it is the gift of God.1
The truth is: Grace makes no sense--it makes no sense at all.
But one thing I know for sure: I am very attracted to it.
Ah, grace...
'I know nothing, except what everyone knows —
if there when Grace dances, I should dance,' wrote the poet.2
Certainly, Jesus Christ was grace personified.
“You see, at just the right time,
when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person,
though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”3 GRACE!
Yes, grace - God reaching down for imperfect man, costly though it was to him; and because his very language is of grace, he is in the business of extending to us his favor. You see, God is not concerned with fairness in the way we are; actually, when you think about it,
grace is strange because there’s absolutely nothing fair about it.
And then I remember, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.4
Right here, right now, I am thinking of another aspect of God's grace; and again, Paul is our teacher, our example, and our guide. In 2 Corinthians 12.9 - with the context of Paul asking God to take away his 'thorn in the flesh' - God said to him, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness!
God gives us the strength, the grace, we need each day - no matter what we are facing.
So, let's ask him for it
So, may I boldly ask you,
**Have you known and accepted God’s grace?
Has the infinite grace of God changed you?
Do you flow in grace – giving and receiving it freely?
Here's the thing . . . can’t really know love without grace
For love ‘believes all things’, bears all things,
and gives the benefit of the doubt . . .5
hmmm...isn't that grace?
"The drippings of grace … longing for a scent of a flower we have not found,
the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.
C. S. Lewis6
It seems that I extend grace to others rather easily, especially when it comes to their sin or their pasts—you know, their struggles. But I tend to hold a harsh line with myself. As a child, I remember singing the old hymn, “Grace Greater than all our Sin,” –‘seems good for everyone else, but for me, the bar is higher. Wait---what is greater than ‘all my sin’--my expectations of myself? Who do I think I am--God forgives me, but I struggle to do the same?
Makes me think of the old song by Building 429- (a clip is in the podcast version)
“When no one else knows how I feel, your love for me is proven real. When no one else cares where I’ve been, you run to me with outstretched hands, and you hold me in your arms again . . .
I need no explanation of ‘why me’, I just need confirmation ‘only you’ could understand the emptiness inside my head . . . I am falling down upon my knees to find the one who gives me peace . . .”
Then I’m connected with grace again. Bearing in mind that my Father's ways are not my ways. “. . .I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” 7
God doesn’t wait for us to come to him . . . he runs to us with open arms outstretched. Remember the arms of the father running to embrace his prodigal son who had spurned his love and ran to explore the world? 8 Yes, and that is the love of our Father, and in his arms, I remember how to dance again. Now that is amazing grace.
Lord, what else would you tell us about your grace?
My grace is free . . . you do not have to pay anything for it.
My grace is more than enough for whatever you are facing
My grace is bountiful enough to cover a multitude of sins
My grace is great enough to forgive any debt
My grace is the fount of everlasting love
My grace can make a dirty life clean
My grace can bring hope to a hopeless person
and life into a hopeless situation
My grace offers the promise of eternal life and love
My grace makes it possible not to live in fear
My grace allows me to ‘forget’ your sin9
My grace can make you a new creature, and
make the old fall away, so that your past will no longer define you~
My grace is a gift to you, but it won’t be yours unless you receive it.
My grace became a person: Jesus.
Friend, you are never beyond the reach of God’s grace. Reach for him.
Start flowing in His grace.
Listen to this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbXbvvBH7ck&list=RDjbXbvvBH7ck&start_radio=1
Grace - Receive it...give it away,
James, no.9
1 - Ephesians 2.8
2 - W. H. Auden, British-American poet
3 - Romans 5.6-8
4 - Isaiah 55.8-9
5 - from 1 Corinthians 13
6 - C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
7 - Exodus 33.19
8 - The Prodigal Son parable Jesus told to illustrate the Father's heart? Luke 15. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2015%3A11-32&version=NIV
9 - Psalm 103.12 - God chooses to 'remember our sins no more', a little different than forget
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