The Offer of Grace

The Offer of Grace

Here is a novel thought.  Grace is offered to everyone.  EVERYONE.  To put it another way, there is no one to whom grace is refused.

There are no disclaimers on grace. 

~You can have grace if you give.

~You can have grace if you haven’t committed sin in the last sixty days.

~You can have grace if you live in the Southern region, or in France.

Well, you get my point.

There are no qualifiers, no rigid lines drawn in the sand as to who can and cannot receive the grace of God.  It is available to all who will receive. 

The bad get grace.

The pretty good get grace.

The saints get grace.

Women get it.

Men get it.

The beat up, the down-trodden, the outcasts, the ones with torn clothes, the one’s whose breath reeks of gin, or whose teeth are stained with tobacco-they are offered grace.  

Grace is offered to all. 

God is not trying to catch us in a moment of weakness.  He doesn’t threaten us with some snide remark like “you will pay for that.”

He wants to come and join our human festivities, the birthday parties, the bar mitzvahs, the weddings, the ball games, and the awards banquets. 

He is a God who understands that children will always get dirty, they’ll tear their clothes, fall off the swing set, and jump in mud puddles.

The point is this …

We are to experience the all-sufficient grace of God regardless of our condition, in good times, in bad times, in poverty, and in wealth.

God’s grace …

~Will get us through the darkest night.

~Will sustain us when all else fails us.

~Will turn our complaints into confessions of God’s sufficient grace.

God’s grace says this … If we sin, we have an advocate with the Father; one who pleads our case.

That’s the grace with which I identify.

I’ll accept this offer of grace any time.

Will you?

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Hope Encouragement Inspiration

Afraid to Trust

Afraid to Trust

I wrote a post last week about the intimacy God desires with each of us.  It’s called God as Abba - Papa God.  

I heard from a long-time friend of mine.  She said: “This one made me cry. Want that intimacy so badly. Somehow afraid to let myself feel it.  Never feel worthy enough. Thanks for this.”

When I was teaching Sunday School, before my heart problems, I had a ninety-year old man say basically the same thing.  He put it in the form of a question.  “How can you really know God forgives, and that He loves me with all that love you keep talking about?”

I’m not smart enough to trick anyone into believing anything about the Gospel of Christ.  It is such a ‘faith’ thing, and sooner or later, we have to accept certain aspects of Christianity on sheer faith.  I don’t have a document that certifies that I am forgiven, or that God wants me to have a close relationship with him.  I’ve not had a dream, or had a divine voice speak audibly to me. 

I do have my faith, and I have the Bible as a reference point that I accept as coming from God through human interpreters.  And I choose to believe what is written.

~I believe God wants to be trusted.

~I believe God is offering this amazing gift of His ferocious love, this hurricane-force outpouring of His love and grace, and I am the object of this outpouring.  And so are you.

I’ve had my moments of doubt.  I’ve had my moments of feelings of unworthiness.  I’ve had my moments when my guilt overwhelmed any sense of redemption that God was offering to me. 

And yet, His love still raged on.  His love still reached me.  His redemption seeped into my heart and I accepted, finally, that I am loved as I am, not as I should be. 

“There is no one perfect … no not one.” 

(Based on Romans 3:23)

Romans 3:10 says basically the same thing.  “There is no one who is righteous; not even one.”

God knows us.  He created us.  He knows we are like sheep who wander away constantly without the guiding eye of the shepherd.  And when we wander, He comes seeking us, and finds us, and if we’re willing to come back, He brings us back home.

Seems to me God is doing all the work.  He loves us, He redeems us.  We get a wandering eye, we look at something brighter, something shiny, more desirable, and we wander.  And He misses us, He seeks us out, and He finds us and invites us back home.

Sometimes, we get it in our heads that we’ve gone too far, we’ve done such bad things that God couldn’t possible love us.  No … never.

We say things like …

“But I stink” (either literally or figuratively)

“But I’m a constant disappointment”

“I’m not worthy”

“I’ve lost my credibility”

               and a thousand other excuses. 

And yet, His love continues.  He woos, He calls, He invites, He offers love, pardon and redemption.

Redemption!  What a great word –

   Renovation

   Reclamation

   Refurbishment

   Restoration

That’s what God offers.  He doesn’t say …

“Go make three trips to church on Friday, crawling on your hands and knees.”

“Pay a $1000 fine.”

“Read your Bible all night, for 12 hours straight.”

He simply says “Come.  Trust.  Accept.”

Now who could be afraid of that?

Internet Church Blog Site

Hope Encouragement Inspiration

God as Abba - Papa God

God as Abba – Papa God

Of all the titles I’ve worn in my years of living, I love most what my grandchildren call me … Papa Michael.

Papa!  And it is used with love, affection and respect. 

We in America don’t use the term Abba in normal conversations.  You’ll find it in Israel, Palestine and those regions of the world however.  It is a term of endearment, as is Papa. 

And that is the God I present to you today.  Abba God.  Papa God. 

My mentor, though now dead – Brennan Manning, says that ‘Abba means in literal English: daddy, my own dear father.’

Child psychologists in America tell us that the average American baby begins to speak between the ages of 14-18 months, and the first word normally spoken is da – da, da, daddy.  A small Jewish child speaking Aramaic in first-century Palestine, at that same age, would begin to say ab – ab, ab, Abba. 

(Taken from The Furious Longing of God-Brennan Manning)

They are terms of endearment, terms of intimacy.

When Christ was teaching his disciples to pray, the first thing He taught them was to call God ‘our Father, who art in heaven.’

Christ knew intimacy with God and He knew the significance of that intimacy and how much God himself wanted that kind of intimacy with His children. 

He wanted to be known as Papa. Abba.

As our children and grandchildren will crawl upon our laps, we could care less if they stay still or if they play with a toy, look around the room, or reach for the computer, as Adia (granddaughter) used to do when I held her on my lap.  What mattered most is that this was a sacred moment.  Father and child, Papa and grandchild. 

God so wants closeness, communion, a relationship with us, and His lap is big enough for us, our toys, our interests, and our fidgeting ways. 

I’ve fallen asleep more times in prayer than I’ve stayed awake and prayed.  God hasn’t cut me off.  He still invites me back to that intimate moment.

My mind wanders often when I’m supposed to be praying.  And God’s love keeps on reaching out to me. 

I’ll never get it right, this intimacy thing, with God.  And I keep coming back to this … God knows me as I am and not as I should be.  And He loves me anyway.

I’m learning to struggle less with getting it ‘right’ and settling more into a comfortable relationship with the God who loves me with a furious love, a raging love that is constant, and never lets up.

You know that wind storm we had recently?  It finally let up, blew itself out and sunny days returned.

Had that been God’s love, it would still be blowing, raging, because He loves us that much.  He never gives up.

What a metaphor. 

Ah …

What a love!

Internet Church Blog Site

Hope Encouragement Inspiration