Reflections on Grace

Grace is the strong hand that reaches out to pull us out of the rising waves when in fear we start to sink.

Grace is the eyes that see us even when we feel invisible to the whole world.

Grace stares in the face of infinite loss and points to but one mighty refuge: the Cross.

Grace is the divine hand that pulls us back from the brink. Every time.

Grace causes the last bits of ice on the surface of our souls to chip off and melt away.

Grace sprints to us while we are still a long way off and gets the fattened calf ready for the party of the century--because a beloved child is coming home.

Grace calls the lame, the blind, the rejected, the poor, the lost, and the mourning to feast in the King's banquet hall, and His banner over them is love.

Grace extends a hand to the lost and the rejected and asks them to dance.

Grace turns to the criminal beside Him and offers him paradise at his last breath, bringing the unshakeable hope of heaven even to a place shrinking under the stench of hell.

Grace is the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints. Qualified us, even us.

Grace is the searing poverty of One who, through His sacrifice, makes even the least of these extravagantly rich.

Grace marks the murderer, the outcast, the broken, the drug addict, the prostitute, the rapist, the abuser, the weeping, the child slave, the victim, the bully, the terrorist, the forgotten, the unwanted, and declares over them all the same eternal and beautiful mantra: You. Are. MINE.

Grace utterly demolishes every lie we've ever been told about ourselves and claims that we're worth the life and breath and blood and tears of the One who makes the morning stars sing together.

Grace is rain in the desert, peace in the storm, life in the midst of our lifelessness.

Grace breaks into the camp of the enemy and steals back lost innocence, lost hope, lost dreams, lost souls.

Grace declares that our past cannot define us, our present cannot possibly be the end of our story, and our future is being written by a hand of love.

Grace strips off our dirty, ripped, filthy sin-rags and garments of despair and drapes a spotless robe of righteousness and a garment of praise over us.

Grace gently pries the cheap dime-store trinkets out of our fingers to replace them with a gift of immeasurable worth. To place His ring on our finger.

Grace pursues us and chases us down and can always outrun us, because it is relentless.

Grace is the crimson stain obliterating the record against us, nailed to his cross.

Grace picks up our ruin and gets the mess of our lives on His hands and picks through even the gutter, the garbage dump, the dark alley, the dirt, the prison, the crack house, the nightclub, the brothel, the homeless shelter, the sweatshop, to find us. Just to find us.

Grace runs after us every time we run away. Every time.

Grace feels our tears on His face and our smile on His lips.

Grace breaks down the walls, tears the bars away, and floods the forbidden and forgotten places with light.

Grace is the divine power that pours unchecked healing into the broken life of someone who but touches the hem of His garment.

Grace wraps a towel around His waist and washes the feet of sinners.

Grace whispers, grace shouts, grace shatters all our preconceived notions about ourselves.

Grace is the treasure of the ages in a cracked jar of clay.

Grace defies all the lies we've ever been told about who we are and just starts telling us whose we are--until we finally start to believe it.

Grace pierces even the deepest darkness and rips off the veil.

Grace is the name of Christ, whispered in the darkest valley. Shouted from the highest mountaintop. Sung from the church pew, prayed by a lonely child, cried out by a single mom, pled by the worst of sinners, breathed out from the heart of the faint and weak and weary. Jesus. JESUS. Never-ending grace.

A Promise . . .

"Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed," says the Lord, who has compassion on you.

--Isaiah 54:10

Unseen Grace

This weekend, my sister came down to visit me for the holiday, and we had a great time. On Sunday, we had the privilege of going to Passion City Church in Atlanta, a first for both of us. It was amazing! Chris Tomlin led worship, and Louie Giglio preached. This congregation is obviously excited about the Lord and what He is doing in people's lives, and it was great to be a part of that.

One of the best parts of the service was that Chris Tomlin had just written (and is in the process of recording) a brand new song for his CD releasing in a few months. He said that it was the first time he had performed the song for an audience. (As Meagan pointed out, we got to attend the world premiere of the song, which was great!) I would post some lyrics but I'm pretty sure that could be copyright infringement, so just go buy his CD when it comes out!

The message of the song was based on a story in 2 Kings 6 that I never even really knew about before. But as a result of the Bible-reading-in-90-days challenge, I had actually just read the story last week and was already thinking about sharing it with my blog readers. After that church service, I definitely feel like I need to share it with you all!

In this passage, the prophet Elisha is advising the king of Israel because Israel was at war with the king of Aram. The Arameans encamped around the city with a great army of horses and chariots. Elisha's servant was terrified when he saw the enemy armies, and he asked Elisha, "What are we going to do?" Elisha said, "Don't be afraid--those who are with us are more than those who are with them." Then Elisha prayed that the Lord would open the eyes of the servant so that he would be able to see. God answered his prayer, and the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and "he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha." God had sent and stationed an unseen army around Elisha to protect his people. Even though at first the servant was too fearful to see them, they were still there to fight on behalf of God's people.

We don't always know how God will choose to protect us, watch over us, and carry us through the battles we face. I believe that God surrounds His people with forms of grace and power that they can't even see. Scripture tells us that God sends angels to encamp around us, and He surrounds us with songs of deliverance. Sometimes He may give us eyes to see the unseen, but even if not, this story reminds us that we have supernatural strength, grace, and power to face whatever we have to face. The power that is with us is greater than any power that can ever be against us!

God is for us and is by our side in ways we can't even fathom, and we will not be afraid.

Encouragement for Your Monday

If you are a child of God, then you know that the Lord goes before and will be with you, and He will never leave you nor abandon you. Nothing and no one can snatch you from His hand. The Lord is the one who has upheld you since you were conceived and has carried you since your birth, and He will sustain you all the rest of your life. He holds you by your right hand. God is the strength of your heart and your portion forever, no matter what.

The Lord is your guide. He is your Redeemer, who teaches you what is best for you and directs you in the way that you should go. His faithfulness surrounds you. He will lead you forward and keep you in perfect peace as you trust in Him completely. Cast your cares on Him, because He will sustain you. The Lord has called you for a righteous purpose, and He will fulfill His purpose for you in perfect time. He makes all things beautiful in His time. His mercies begin afresh each morning. He will always direct your steps as you trust in Him.

The Lord delights in you and rejoices over you, and He will quiet you with His love. He is your rock and your refuge, and even the most intense storm can't take that refuge away. He is your hiding place. His everlasting arms are holding you up. He is mighty to save. He is with you and will watch over you wherever you go. Because God is for you, no one can be against you. He has not given you a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and a sound mind. The joy of the Lord is your strength, and as you hope in Him, He will infuse you with new strength to face whatever you have to face.

And God's grace is always, always sufficient for you. For me. For all of us.

Why Leviticus Is an Inspirational Read

As one of the main aspects of our "90 days to a new you" program, my sister Meagan and I have been following a plan to read through the Bible in 90 days. For the past couple of weeks, we've been getting reacquainted with the familiar, and not-so-familiar, parts of the first few books of the Bible. (And we've been texting back and forth our discoveries and commentary: "Did you know Abraham got remarried after his first wife died?" "Christian pick-up line: I was reading the book of Numbers last night and I realized that I don't have yours." "Why wasn't that part of Exodus in the Prince of Egypt?" "Riddle for you: Who broke all 10 commandments at once? Moses!")

But when I read the Bible, I don't typically jump right to the book of Leviticus. This Old Testament law treatise has a reputation as being one of the most boring, hard-to-understand books in all of Scripture. Its 27 chapters are dedicated to a very detailed description of the laws the Israelite people were to follow: laws about burnt offerings and sin offerings and guilt offerings, laws about what was clean and unclean, laws about how the priests were to go about their duties. You might think I'd like this book because it's a compilation of laws, and I am, after all, a law student. But following that same logic, I'd also enjoy curling up on the couch with a cup of coffee and the Code of Federal Regulations. (Hint: I don't.)

But despite my hesitation, the reading plan put me in Leviticus this past week. So last Sunday afternoon, I dutifully settled down and started to read. And before I knew it, I was transported back into a different culture and time, a time before Christ. A time when God's people had to continually offer all kinds of sacrifices before the Lord to atone for their sins. A time when the blood of lambs and goats perpetually stained the altars and the stench of the offerings hung over the camp day and night, and when people had to make offerings even for unintentional or unknown sins.

What would it be like if we had lived in that day and time? Leviticus gives us a glimpse into just how burdensome, and even fearful and oppressive, the system of sacrifice could be. This is a dark and heavy book, and I think if it's read without a broader understanding of the big picture, it can engender a skewed understanding of the Word.

But I believe that one of the primary reasons that Leviticus was preserved in Scripture for us today was for us to see that the sacrificial system of the Old Testament was intentionally imperfect, and meant primarily to point to what was to come. If it were a perfect system, then there would have been no need for Jesus Christ to come. But the blood of animals could never really cleanse and purify. And it could never truly remove the guilt of the people. It makes us realize that these people needed a real Redeemer and a truly spotless Lamb. Their sin was so great . . . my sin was so great. All the animals in the world couldn't really take it away.

Leviticus shows you the utter magnitude of human guilt, the fear, the true oppression of sin. And the sacrificial system, before Christ, would never be enough. More blood would always have to be shed. Human efforts were always going to be futile. Every evening and every morning, another animal would need to be offered. About halfway through the book, you start feeling the desperation of the people, a sense of futility, and a sense that this system wasn't perfect, and wasn't meant to be. You begin to sense that even though the cost of all of those animal sacrifices would have been very substantial, the true cost of sin was infinitely greater.

Would you have believed at that time that there could ever be a final sacrifice? What if someone told you that one day, the need to sacrifice would be no more? Jesus did what centuries of animal sacrifice couldn't ever do: he saved his people from their sins. It wasn't temporary. It was permanent. Jesus paid it all.

Oh, how I need Jesus. Oh how we all need Jesus so much. I was overwhelmed by my need and by his mercy. And I think that's kind of the point of this book.

Leviticus even includes some rather gruesome imagery of how the sacrificial animals were to be slaughtered, pointing to an ultimate and excruciating brokenness as the real Lamb gave up his life. It made me truly realize the magnitude of what Christ has done for us and how important what He did really was. And even echoes of Exodus and the original Passover celebration come in: "When I see the blood, I will pass over you." God has passed over us in his wrath on sin, because it was poured out on the one perfect Lamb who became the ultimate sacrifice. The one that could really take away guilt, genuinely bring forgiveness, and tear down the walls that separated man from God. Thank you for your mercy. Oh, God, thank you for sending Jesus. And it was finished, and the curtain in the temple was ripped in two. It was FINISHED. Leviticus is worth your time to read because it makes the work of Jesus stand out in bold relief. Even though it's not always explicit, this book points to Jesus almost more than any other Old Testament book. As it does here:

Leviticus 26:12: "I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people."

Is the Gospel Offensive?

I'll just come right out and answer that question: yes, the Gospel is offensive--and the Bible describes it that way. Christians often say that we should never be offended by the Gospel, but I think what they really mean is that we should never be ashamed of the Gospel. Christians should freely and without shame embrace the Gospel as the truth on which they base their lives, but the Gospel, by its very nature, is offensive.

We live in an achievement-saturated culture that teaches that people will get ahead and be successful by their own hard work and best efforts. Our society is filled with hierarchies in which the rich, the powerful, and the successful are on top, while the poor, the broken, and the outcasts are all too often ignored and left behind. All around us we see cutthroat competition to do the best, have the best, and be the best. It's all based on who we are, and what we bring to the table, and how great we can be. And people who are deemed "more successful" than others are rewarded much more than those who don't have a long list of accomplishments to boast about, or a ten-page resume, or a seven-figure bank account.

But then the Gospel bursts onto the scene--and it throws all of our notions of merit out the window and embraces these great divine paradoxes that we may never fully understand. It utterly offends and shatters all of our concepts and preconceived notions of what's important. It says that who you are does not matter; who you are in Christ does matter. It claims that the most accomplished person on this earth isn't even one step ahead of the deadbeats when it comes to receiving the life Christ died to offer us. It tells us that the last shall be first, that the treasure of Christ is poured out into jars of clay, that all the strength and power of a risen Savior rests on the weak, the broken, the poor, and the persecuted. Because of what Christ has done, it doesn't even matter what you bring to the table.

The apostle Paul claimed that through the Gospel, God made foolish all of the wisdom of the world, and that God has chosen the weak, foolish, and lowly things of the world so that no one may boast before Him. The Gospel teaches that our hope comes solely through Christ, crucified and then risen from the dead. Nothing else counts--not our striving, not our efforts, not our successes. In Christ, stronger isn't better. More accomplished isn't better. More powerful isn't better.

And honestly, it's a shock to the system. It ruptures everything we know about how the world works and turns it on its head. God is not running a meritocracy, and that offends the way our world works.

It's offensive that our striving doesn't help. It's offensive that we can't do it on our own. It's offensive that our best efforts don't put us into right standing with God. It's offensive that our past accomplishments are deemed rubbish in comparison to knowing Christ. It can be difficult to accept, confusing, and even frustrating. But it is true--and it is good news indeed. The Gospel has the power to make us overturn our ideologies, change our commitments, relinquish our privileges, and dismantle our hierarchies. Our beloved merit-based system needs to get offended by the outrageous, ridiculous, extravagant GRACE of the Gospel.

Our society is obsessed with being politically correct and never offending anybody. But sometimes the truth is offensive. And sometimes, staring truth in the face and being offended by it--offended enough to be shocked out of our complacency and propelled toward change-is a good thing. But instead of embracing the offensive qualities of the gospel, we sugarcoat it in messages that are more like self-help, popular psychology, and the "prosperity gospel" than genuine truth. It's easy to sweep the hard truths under the rug.

The message that the cross of Christ wipes out even our very best efforts and shatters the wisdom of the world has always been offensive, and I think Paul recognized that in a way that we don't get today. In Galatians 5, he explained that he was being persecuted because his message refused to do away with "the offense of the cross." Paul embraced the offense of the cross and got his hands dirty with the Gospel message. And so should we! It is profoundly offensive--and that's the way it's supposed to be. 1 Peter describes Christ not only as the "chosen and precious cornerstone" but also as a "rock of offense" to some. And Jesus Himself asked His disciples on occasion, "Does this [my teaching] offend you?" He knew that his own message was bound to be offensive.

The Gospel offends all of our long-held assumptions about merit, effort, strength, profit, and power. It can overturn the foundations we've built our lives on. But if we're willing to let the message of the cross, in all its truth, offend all of our beliefs about how the world is supposed to work, we will be left face-to-face with grace.

A Gap Filled By Grace

Have you ever compared what you deserve from God with what God actually gives you? Recently,
I sensed God nudging my heart to just consider, for a moment, not what it is that I get from Him but what it is that I deserve in my relationship with Him. Because in truth, a life with a God who loves us is something none of us deserve! If what you get has to be based on what your actions deserve then....we deserve rejection from God because we reject Him so often. We deserve for Him to ignore our needs because we repeatedly ignore his commands. We deserve for God to seek after anything BUT a relationship with us, because we often treat Him as our last resort when nothing else has succeeded in filling our lives or hearts. We deserve brokenness for when we break the heart of God through our choices. We deserve for God to turn us away because we turn Him away. Regularly.

But I thank God that the economy of grace is not based on what we deserve!! Frankly, it's not even based on what we do. 2 Timothy 2:13 says that if we are faithless, he will REMAIN FAITHFUL to us. That is the gospel for the faithless. For those who fail. For those who have rejected God time and again but yet find themselves still longing for His embrace. It's for people who get tired and worn out from the cutthroat competition of our merit- and achievement-based world. Who long for a relationship where our actions can't change God's character. People like you and me. It's for people who want a sphere of existence that isn't dominated by achievement. That has nothing to do with the success that is ubiquitously craved in the surrounding world. Where we don't have to constantly DO or ATTAIN or STRIVE for favor. Scripture says that God's love and favor surround those who are righteous. At first, that may seem as if it takes us right back to exactly what we're trying to get away from--a world where we have to do certain things and be certain kinds of people to be loved. I've certainly been captive to that kind of thinking before. Because how can we ever be righteous?

1 Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 30, answers that question more beautifully than I ever could. It says, "Christ Jesus has become for us wisdom from God--that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption." I don't know about you, but I can't add anything to that. Jesus IS righteousness for us. When I think about that, trying to earn God's favor seems pointless--if we trust Christ yet still find ourselves falling into the trap of trying to "earn" God's favor, then we are seeking to attain a position that WE ALREADY HAVE. Because we are covered in Christ's righteousness, we are in total right standing with God and our so-called "merit" is thrown out the window. Because we don't even need it anymore!

So, usually, when someone says, "you deserve better," it's kind of like saying, well, it stinks for you, because you didn't GET anything better. It prompts people to think about the gap between what they got and what they deserved, and that gap is often filled with regret and frustration.
Not so when I think of what I deserve versus what I get in my relationship with God. There is a HUGE gap between the rejection my actions deserve from God and the life I'm able to live through Christ. A life where, as one of my favorite songs puts it, the amazing is so ordinary and mercy overflows. And in this analysis of the "what I deserve" versus "what I get" I find that that extraordinary gap is filled by abundant grace.