Forty Days of Grace: What's So Amazing About Grace?

I have been studying Phillip Yancey's book, "What's So Amazing About Grace?" for about 8 months now.  I highly recommend it to anyone.

One of the many things I have learned through this study of grace (that I am about to present to my church over the next 7 weeks) is that grace MUST take place in a relational context.  What I mean is that grace, outside of a relationship with God, makes no sense.  If you try to practice or understand grace without Jesus, for example, all you get is empty forgiveness and/or permissiveness.  Neither works.  Neither is real.  And yet, that is where so many Christians and churches are in their understanding of grace. 

As much as I like the song "Amazing Grace," I wish that at least once in that song they would have mentioned Jesus.  All the emphasis in that song, as wonderful as it is, is on ME.  Count the number of times you sing the word "I," "me" and "we."  I once was lost but now I'm found.  Was blind but now I see. 

However, if our understanding of grace revolves around Jesus, we have to look at grace differently.  In the amazing story of the prodigal son, the son has run away to a distant land, spent all his money, lost all his friends, and is now starving and lost.  He comes back home to the open arms of his father.  There is no pretense of goodness.  The son knows he can't fake it.  He only returned for one purpose- the hope of restored relationship with his father.  It was a realization that his actions had deeply hurt the people he cared about.  It was the realization that his actions had not been good for him.  It was the realization that his actions had caused harm, both to him and the people he loved, and he needed to change. 

In other words, he experienced brokenness.  That is the starting point for grace.  Until we reach those same realizations, we will never be able to accept the amazing gift of God's grace.  The only reason we reach out for grace is the impossible hope of a restored relationship with our Father.  We don't reach out for grace because we have proved we deserve it.  No, we reach out for grace because we are at a point of hopeless brokenness, and we realize our desperate need for our Lord and Savior Jesus.  

Living with a Single Passion

We are getting ready to start a brand new intense series at Catalyst called "40 Days of Grace."  As with many big things, I approach this with mixed feelings- both of excitement and apprehension.  I am excited because if the church actually grabs hold of what we will be talking about over the next 40 days, God will move in ways I could never comprehend or imagine.  I am apprehensive for the opposite reason- what if the church just says "ho hum" or we don't communicate it in a way that is relevant?

The combination of Sunday morning messages, daily devos, small group DVD lessons (all produced in-house with no outside help) represent six months of labor and study.  What if the people don't get it?  Even more terrible would be this:  what if the people are the exact same after this series than before?

All these thoughts run through my head as we prepare to jump into this huge event in the life of our church.  I have realized that I can't dwell on them.  I can't make people learn or change.  That is up to God.  In other words, the success of 40 Days of Grace is not up to me.  It is up to God.  My job was to be faithful, to do the very best I can with what I have, and leave the results up to God.

I realize that this is also the way my walk with Christ is.  Whether I do great things or small things for God, it is simply my job to be faithful.  God wants faithfulness from me, not success.  I think as Christians so many times we get caught up in whether or not we are successful in the Christian life.  We look at our prayer lives, our struggles with temptation, our study of the Bible, and see no success at all.  Thank God we will not be judged on those things.  We will be judged on our faithfulness- did we love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength?  Did we answer when He called?  Did we live with a single passion- to see the name of God glorified and known throughout His creation?

Faithfulness, not success, is the hallmark of the Christian life.  Therefore, going into this series, I am praying for faithfulness, both in my church and in my life.  I pray that through the 40 Days our church will become even more faithful to God.  I pray that I will become more faithful to God.  The results?  Well, that's up to the Man upstairs.

Pirates

I was watching Pirates of the Caribbean (the first one), and the scene where Captain Jack Sparrow and Will Turner are stealing the British Frigate caused me to think about my faith in Christ.

After faking out the British and boarding the little fast ship, the first thing the two pirates do is to cut the ropes that were holding the two ships together.  I can just see the close-ups of the ropes being cut, one by one, until all the things holding the two ships together were gone.  Only then was the ship free to be under the direction of the captain.

I began to think that my life is one of the ships, and this world I live in is the other.  I wonder how many "ropes" I have holding me to this world.  I wonder how securely I am tied to this world, preventing me from being free, under the direction of my Captain.  I think one of the most relevant statements to the Christian life is "In the world and not OF the world."

The Bible warns us that we are strangers in this world, travelers who are on their way through, and that this world is not our home.  The Bible warns us not to get too comfortable here, not to throw ropes across and anchor our lives to this place.  Yet everything I do seems to wed me more and more to this world.  My concerns of money, my desire for comfort, my lack of passion for the calling of God on my life, my lack of concern for the next world, my being consumed with petty daily concerns- all serve as ropes to anchor me to a place I don't belong.  I wonder how God sees my life- if He sees me as a ship who is so securely wedded to this world that I am unable to follow His direction, His will, His plans.  Am I truly free?