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Category: Grace (Page 2 of 11)

If Not You…

April 23, 2022 / / 0 Comments

“See to it that no one misses the grace of God.” ~Hebrews 12:15
As children of God and disciples of Christ Jesus, we demonstrate his grace to the people around us. We make sure all the people we contact every day know the truth about our God because they experience it in us. They encounter his grace in us. They see it and feel it in you.

This is as practical and tangible and as real as the Christian life gets. Whatever you have received from the Lord, you generously pass it on to others.

“Forgive each other just as in Christ God forgave you.” ~Ephesians 4:32
Forgive the person in your life who doesn’t deserve it. Forgive the person who’s never apologized. We’ve got more than enough people out there accusing and condemning. Who’s going to forgive? Christians who, by God’s grace, have been forgiven.

“Accept one another just as Christ accepted you.” ~Romans 15:7
Invite somebody over to your house who is 30 years older or 30 years younger than you. Take somebody to lunch who’s a different race or speaks a different language. Have a conversation with somebody from a different culture than yours and learn something. We’ve got lots of people out there dividing us and categorizing us and drawing lines and excluding others. Who’s going to accept others? Christians who, by God’s grace, have been accepted.

“Love one another as I have loved you.” ~John 15:34
Take a Sonic drink to your grouchy next door neighbor. Say something kind and encouraging to the customer service agent. Compliment the cashier at the gas station. Give up your own rights and give in to the demands of someone else. There’s enough hate out there, there’s enough haters – more than enough. Who’s going to show love? Christians who, by God’s grace, have been eternally loved.

Peace,

Allan

He Touched the Coffin

February 14, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Jesus is walking to the little town of Nain. This little village is so small, so insignificant, so completely unimportant to anybody, that most scholars have no idea where it was located. This was a nothing town full of nobody people. But in Luke 7, Jesus is going there. That means something, yes?

“As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out – the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.” ~Luke 7:12

In that part of the world, at that time and place, it was over for this poor woman. If you’re a woman in that setting and your husband dies and then your only son dies, it’s a death sentence for you. This is a picture of utter despair and hopelessness.

“When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, ‘Don’t cry.'” ~Luke 7:13

Death is the ultimate sign that things are messed up. Any kind of sickness, too. Sickness reminds us that death is coming, eventually. We don’t know when or where or how, but we do know death is in the cards for all of us. Sickness reminds us of that. Sickness and death are connected. Death reminds us that this world is broken and things are not the way God created them and intended them to be.

“Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, ‘Young man, I say to you, get up!’ The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. They were all filled with awe and praised God… They said, ‘God has come to help his people!'” ~Luke 7:14-17

It’s important that Jesus touched the coffin. He touched the coffin and everything got still. Jesus touched the coffin and stopped death in its tracks. Where death was going, where death was taking this poor woman, what death had planned for this family – all of that was stopped cold as soon as Jesus touched the coffin.

According to the Law, when Jesus touched the coffin, it made him unclean. It tarnished him, it defiled him. According to the Law, it made Jesus an outcast, it separated him from the community of God’s people and, in some sense, for a while, it separated him from God. But he still did it. Jesus touched the coffin.

Jesus is willing to identify with the situation. He purposefully walks to the awful circumstance, he doesn’t back away. He touches the coffin, he goes to the problem, and he takes it into himself. He becomes one with your death. Whatever is killing you or threatening to kill you, whatever is stealing your joy, whatever is hijacking your hope, our Lord Jesus resolutely walks to it and touches it. He identifies with it, he identifies with you, he touches you, and he stops whatever is going on.

God in Christ has the amazing power to reverse the curse. God in Christ has the power and authority to fix everything that’s broken in your life and to make right everything in your world that’s gone wrong. And, praise the Lord, he has the desire, the willingness, and the grace to do it. For you.

At great cost to himself, yes. But he has that same grace for you.

Peace,

Allan

Lavish

June 3, 2021 / / 0 Comments

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” ~1 John 3:1

Our God does not measure his love to us. He doesn’t weigh it on the scales or scoop it out with a spoon. He doesn’t give us just enough of his love to get us by or just as much of his love as we might deserve. He floods us with his love! We have more of his love than we could ever ask for or imagine! That’s the one thing you can ask God to do that’s just impossible – God, will you love me more? Nope. Can’t. Impossible. He lavishes us with his love.

“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.” ~Ephesians 1:7-8

Our Father lavishes us with his grace. We sing about it. God’s amazing grace. God’s matchless grace. God’s grace that reaches even me!

God’s forgiveness is over the top. It’s not that you’re forgiven of some of your sins or you’re forgiven of most of your sins or all the little sins or every sin except that one sin. It’s not that you’re forgiven if you do this one thing or keep these sets of rules or say this particular creed. In Jesus Christ, God’s forgiveness is total and complete and forever! In Jesus, every single one of your sins – all of ’em, name ’em! – are all gone forever. They are removed from you as far as the east is from the west. They are hurled to the bottom of the sea, never to be dredged up again. God doesn’t put your sins up on the top shelf in the corner of a dark closet just so he can pull them out and hold them against you at the worst possible time. God’s forgiveness is lavish and complete.

Lavish love. Limitless grace. Inexhaustible forgiveness. Unmerited favor. Eternal glory. Our God is passionate about you and me. And he holds nothing back.

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I’m not writing anything here today about the Mavericks. I don’t want to jinx it.

Peace,

Allan

Weakness Turned to Strength

May 11, 2021 / / 0 Comments

I know you make mistakes and you mess up. Me, too. I know you sin. I know you leave things undone that should be done and you do things you should not do. Me, too. But those mistakes are not what define you. Those sins do not characterize who you are as a person and they do not limit how our God relates to you. It is God’s grace that defines you. It’s his grace that covers you. It is his grace that enables you to keep going in the trust and faith that God is powerfully at work in you.

I look at the Faith Ring of Honor in Hebrews 11 and I don’t see any perfect people.

Sarah had a laughing problem.  Abraham had his own laughing problem and a problem with lying and the kid with Hagar. But the Bible says they never wavered in their faith. That means Abraham is not defined by his many mistakes. Sarah is not characterized by her poor choices.

In Hebrews 11, Rahab is not condemned for being a prostitute. All these people are commended for their faith. Gideon? He’s a spineless, wishy-washy doubter. Barak? He’s gutless. Samson? He’s arrogant and selfish, a violent womanizer. Jepthah? He’s stupid and thoughtless. David? An adulterer, a liar, and a traitor to his country. Samuel? Maybe one of the worst parents in all of Scripture. But here they are in this list of heroes with all their sins and all their flaws. Hebrews 11 says these are the people who conquered kingdoms, administered justice, gained what was promised, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword. These are the people, it says, whose weakness was turned to strength!

You know, the Bible says God’s power is made perfect in our weakness.

His grace is also made perfect in the places where you need it most.

Peace,

Allan

Outside Solution

October 12, 2020 / / 4 Comments

Right now, our nation feels so fractured. Just turn on the news for about four seconds. Any channel.

Right now, our families and neighbors seem so separated. When’s the last time you saw your parents or went to a birthday party?

Right now, our churches are more scattered than gathered. There are people who used to sit by you who don’t anymore. Your church is smaller than it used to be. And your pastor doesn’t know what to do.

Right now, the whole world is focused on the distance and the differences between us. Just check out your Facebook.

Right now, it seems that if you don’t live where I live, look like I look, think like I think, vote like I vote, or worship like I worship; if we are of different ages, different races, or different nationalities; we can’t be together. If we don’t have these things in common, we must not have anything in common. We can’t.

This is decidedly not what Christians believe. We believe that by the grace of God we are all connected to one another. But it’s only by grace. It’s nothing we can accomplish on our own.

We live in a broken world. We are a fallen people living in a fallen world in which the systems and structures and supports and the people who operate them are broken. We cannot fix what’s wrong with us, what’s wrong with other people, or what’s wrong with the world. We can’t fix it because we are the problem. The solution can’t come from within us or our systems because we and our systems are busted.

We go to family counseling but, once the sessions are over, the family system pushes us back into the old habits. Black Americans suffer injustice and we all protest together but, give it time, and our society goes right back to where it was. We go to the polls for every election and vote for change every time, but we stay stuck in the status quo. It’s the old line: If voting could change anything, they’d make it illegal.

A fallen humanity in a fallen world offers no hope to anybody. We put our hope in our science and technology, but all the great advances have caused more problems than they’ve solved. We put our hope in our money, our kids, and our careers, and we wind up disappointed and empty. Every time.

We all need the grace of God that comes to us from outside our broken systems. We need a salvation from outside our fallen selves. And the Good News of amazing grace and everlasting truth is that God so loved the world that he came here to us. He came from above us and beyond us to save us. He redeems us by his blood, he restores us by his love, and he connects us together in himself.

Right now is the time to remember all the things we have in common and, by God’s grace, to live into them together.

Right now is the season to consider the countless ways we are attached and, by God’s grace, to work towards expressing and experiencing them together.

Right now is the occasion to acknowledge and prioritize the many ways we are connected to each other and to every man, woman, and child on this planet by the incredible gift of our faithful God’s amazing grace.

Peace,

Allan

To Mature All Graces

September 18, 2020 / / 0 Comments

“May it be our blessedness, as years go on, to add one grace to another, and advance upward, step by step, neither neglecting the lower after attaining the higher, nor aiming at the higher before attaining the lower. The first grace is faith, the last is love; first comes zeal, afterwards comes loving-kindness; first comes humility, then comes peace; first comes diligence, then comes resignation. May we learn to mature all graces in us; fearing and trembling, watching and repenting, because Christ is coming; joyful, thankful, and careless of the future, because he is come.”

~John Henry Newman

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