THE PRACTICE AND ART OF GRACIOUSNESS

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”  (Ephesians 4:32 NIV)

Graciousness is not accidental. It is a practice -- a deliberate way of moving through the world -- and it is an art -- something shaped, refined, and expressed with beauty.

Paul’s words in Ephesians remind us that graciousness is never self-generated. It begins with God. We forgive because we have been forgiven. We show compassion because compassion has been shown to us. We extend kindness because kindness has already been poured over our lives in Christ. Grace received becomes grace expressed.

But this is where the art comes in. Because extending grace to others is rarely simple. It requires patience when someone is short with us. It requires humility when we feel justified in our frustration. It requires restraint when our emotions want to run ahead of our faith.

Graciousness is the quiet choice to treat others not according to how they’ve acted, but according to how God has acted toward us. As God had been gracious toward us in Christ, we should be gracious toward others.

And when we practice it -- again and again -- it becomes something lovely. A faithful witness. A sweet fragrance. A beautiful reflection of the God who has been endlessly gracious with us. 

-- SOUND BITES Ministry™ 

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THE GIFT OF GRACE

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast.”  (Ephesians 2:8–9)

After centuries of handling and mishandling, most religious words have become so shopworn nobody's much interested anymore. Not so with ‘grace’, for some reason. Mysteriously, even derivatives like gracious and graceful still have some of the bloom left.

Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There's no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.

A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace. Somebody loving you is grace. Loving somebody is grace. Have you ever tried to love somebody?...

The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is your world. Beautiful and terrible things happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you.

There is only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you'll reach out and take it. 

-- Excerpted from “Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC's of Faith” by Frederick Buechner

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RESPONDING TO GOD’S GIFT

“Righteous Father, though the world does not know You, I know You, and they know that You have sent Me. I have made You known to them, and will continue to make You known in order that the love You have for Me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”  (John 17:25-26 NIV)

"Responding to God" is a concept that many, if not most, find difficult to grasp.  Human nature and institutions have presented almost insurmountable obstacles to this process.  The free will that God has given mankind permits a focus on immediate and physical needs, often at the expense of long-term and spiritual needs.  Many do not even consider the possibility of an ultimate or eternal need. 

Every single human being causes harm or disappointment to others at various times.  The injury is often in the failure to take an appropriate action.  Mankind has always been plagued with thoughtless and destructive behaviors.  Governments, social organizations, and religions have evolved focusing on these behaviors and attempting to ameliorate them.  Rules, laws, moral codes, and commandments have proliferated with elaborate systems of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards and punishments.  Who could satisfy every demand?  The criminal and immoral usually don't care.  Those who try to do good still face the guilt associated with failing to meet every expectation.  The good and the bad, to various degrees, are all subject to guilt and the anxieties associated with it.  Mankind was given free will and a deep-seated need for God, but not perfection.  We, in fact, seem to be prisoners of our imperfection.

Christians believe that God provided the solution to this condition over 2,000 years ago.  To demonstrate His love for humanity, He sent His Son, in essence Himself, into the world.  Jesus came to destroy the barriers separating men and women from God.  He brought a simple message of forgiveness and reconciliation.  Through Jesus, every human being was given a clear and direct way to God.  He prayed, "Righteous Father, I have made You known to them… in order that the love You have for Me may be in them." The appropriate "response" to God is simply to accept this gift.

-- Larkin Spivey in “God in the Trenches” 

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GRACE MATTERS

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He it is who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for Himself a people of His own who are zealous for good deeds.”  (Titus 2:11-14 NRSV)

Grace is the voice that calls us to change and then enables us to yield to its transforming power. Grace matters because Jesus matters, and it works because He does. Amazing hope and anticipation are in this for each of us; imagine how different our lives can be when entrusted to the hands of grace…

Heavenly Father, Holy God, thank You so very much for Your gift of grace. Not a day passes that I don’t need more of Your unending supply of grace. Remind me of Your goodness over and over so that I may live in the fullness of Your grace. Grant that I may be a model of Your goodness in all I do, every day, so others will be compelled to see and accept Your incomparable gift of grace. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen. 

-- Max Lucado in “Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine”

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WHAT’S SO AMAZING ABOUT GRACE? – Part 2

“For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit.”  (1 Peter 3:18 RSV)

“But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions -- it is by grace you have been saved.”  (Ephesians 2:4-5 NIV)

Grace is God as a heart surgeon, cracking open your chest, removing your heart -- poisoned as it is with pride and pain -- and replacing it with His own. Rather than tell you to change, He creates the change. Do you clean up so that He can accept you? God accepts you and then begins cleaning up. His dream isn’t just to get you into heaven but to get heaven into you. What a difference this makes! Can’t forgive your enemy? Can’t face tomorrow? Can’t forgive your past? Christ can, and He is on the move, aggressively budging you from graceless to grace-shaped living. The gift-given giving gifts. Forgiven people forgiving people. Deep sighs of relief. Stumbles aplenty but despair seldom.

Grace is everything Jesus. Grace lives because He does, works because He works, and matters because He matters. He placed a term-limit on sin and danced a victory jig in a graveyard. To be saved by grace is to be saved by Him -- not by an idea, doctrine, creed, or church membership, but by Jesus Himself, who will sweep into heaven anyone who so much as gives Him the nod. 

-- Max Lucado in “Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine”

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THE RESPONSE TO GRACE

“From then on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.’”  (Matthew 4:17 NLT)

The more deeply one enters into the experience of the sacred the more one is aware of one’s own personal sin and the destructive forces in society. The fact that one is alive to what is possible for humankind sharpens one’s sense that we are fallen people. The awareness of sin is the inevitable consequence of having met grace... This grace-judgment dynamic reveals that the center of Christian life is repentance. This does not mean that the distinguishing mark of the Christian is breast-beating. Feeling sorry, acknowledging guilt, and prolonging regret may be components of the human condition, but they are not what Jesus means by repentance. Repentance is the response to grace that overcomes the past and opens out to a new future. Repentance distinguishes Christian life as one of struggle and conversion and pervades it, not with remorse, but with hope. The message of Jesus is not “Repent,” but “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” 

-- Adapted from John Shea in “A Star at Its Rising”

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