This week we’re exploring how following Jesus impacts our lifestyle by one principle: grace. Grace is one of the most important, life-changing aspects of Christian story. Here’s how the Bible talks about grace:
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
(Ephesians 2:4-10 ESV)
Here is an easy way to remember the meaning:
God’s
Riches
At
Christ’s
Expense
A friend had a young child at home, and a baby on the way and his mother loved to help out by cleaning up the house. One particularly stressful time she was coming down to decompress the situation by cleaning up the house. My friend came home that day to find his wife madly cleaning up the house, before the mother in law arrived. She didn’t want her mother-in-law to see a messy house, even though she was there to clean it as a gift.
We so often we think that we have to have cleaned up our lives before we can accept what God wants to give us. We don’t have to have sorted ourselves out before we can accept God’s free gift of forgiveness, his grace.
When you ask someone why they don’t like Christianity…you’ll often hear “it’s just a bunch of rules.” I don’t need a book to tell me how to be a good person. If that was true, I wouldn’t want to be part of this religion either.
But it’s not true…that’s the religion that Jesus came to get rid of, and not his hope for us. Here’s the version of Christianity that people are usually describing:
Obey God’s laws
God will accept you
He’ll provide you with loving care
He’ll give you a new status, as a servant of God.
This is a law religion, the kind of thing the Pharisees liked to promote. Jesus didn’t have very nice things to say about that!
The problem is – no one has ever obeyed God’s laws perfectly enough to earn God’s love. Actually, there was one person – Jesus. He knew our hopeless situation, and did something about it. Jesus was all about grace. This involves the same steps, but in a different order:
God loves and accepts you…unconditionally
God will provide you with loving care. He wants to be part of your life today, not some day in the future.
God will give you a new status: Child of God adopted into his family
You now return God’s favour with thanksgiving and living in his way.
In grace…we are given God’s love, care and fatherhood as free gifts, even before having proven ourselves worthy, and that gives us a lot to live up to!
Question: Where have you typically seen laws and rules in your faith? As the way to earn God’s love, or respond to it? Why?
Reminder: Earlier in this series, we saw the importance of reading the Bible together in sync, so our new daily bible readings start today in our mobile app and web site.
Read the Bible in Sync Today
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Last week, I told you story of my old neighbour who helped build a deck. He nicely represented the transition from strangers to neighbours to acquaintances to partners. Today we’ll go one step further. We’ll talk about becoming friends with those we work with, those we help, and those we live around.
When I was a volunteer paramedic, I remember one partner in particular. We did several shifts together, and on calls he was always nervous, and second-guessing himself, which could be challenging to work with. One day, he invited me to supper. I met his family, saw his home and farm, and in the process learned about him and his values. The next shift we had together was different. I found we could communicate better, and I could anticipate his moves. Debriefing the call afterwards was easier. I knew this quirks, where they came from, and could work from a place of partnership and friendship rather than tolerance.
This has wider application than the workplace, but some good examples of how important this is follow from a few studies:
50 percent of employees with a best friend at work reported that they feel a strong connection with their company, compared to just 10 percent of employees without a best friend at work. (A 2012 Gallup report which found that)
People planning to stick with their current job cited “good relationship with co-workers” as the major reason (67%) – above “job satisfaction” (63%), “flexible working arrangements” (57%) and even salary (which ranked seventh at 46%). A 2013 survey of 2,223 business people across Australia
In the same way, being a follower of Jesus isn’t just about doing transactions, like dealing with other followers of Jesus because you have to, or caring for others in need simply because it looks good.
We’re actually meant to become friends with those we care for, and those we care with. Not every single one to the same degree maybe, but we are actually meant to have a relationship with those we encounter in this life, and not simply use people or tolerate others.
We’ll focus this week on those we care for, those we’ve been talking about all along, and becoming friends.
Question: When have you unexpectedly “hit it off” with someone at work?
