Discussion of the Best News in the World, the Gospel of Jesus, and related topics
C.S. Lewis: It must be understood that my conversion at that point was only to theism pure and simple. I knew nothing yet about the incarnation. The God to whom I surrendered was sheerly non-human.
The word grace has become an everyday church conversational word, until many Christians uses the words without truly understanding the weight behind it. Some Christians understand grace as God’s richest at Christ’s expense. Some as God’s unmerited favors towards undeserving people. Most of us uses grace as synonym to forgiveness of sin. But then, a lot of believers see grace as God’s additional help to add for the lack of perfection in our self-effort. Grace is what God gives to you when you tried your best but you fail. There is a popular saying that says, ‘God help those who help themselves.’ If these definitions of grace is true, then grace is not amazing at all.
It is very hard to define the word grace. But it is crucial that we have the right understanding of it.
Without the right understanding of grace, we wont be able to understand the fullness of God in the Bible.
Grace is ever present in every single page of the Bible. From Genesis to Revelation, grace is the long thread that connect everything together for God’s glory. So without understanding grace correctly, we can have a distorted view of the One true living God. But when we have the correct understanding of grace, only then we can sing ‘Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.’
In order for us to understand the amazing-ness of grace and the weight behind the word, Sam Storm in his book ‘Chosen for Life,’ writes 10 characteristic of grace. I hope these ten points will help us realize that grace is truly amazing.
Grace is indeed amazing. It does not originate from us but in God. We are only the undeserved recipients of grace, and that’s what make grace so amazing. J.I. Packer expressed it this way:
“The grace of God is love freely shown toward guilty sinners, contrary to their merit and indeed in defiance of their demerit. It is God showing goodness to persons who deserve only severity, and had no reason to expect anything but severity.”
thank you Yosia Yusuf
From Reasons to Believe in 2016:
Every year on April 22, millions of people worldwide will gather on local beaches, streets, and parks to collect trash, plant trees, and honor and celebrate our Earth. In recent years, Earth Day has become almost as popular as Halloween and Christmas, observed by people from diverse religious beliefs and backgrounds. Rather than dismissing the holiday as just another day, Earth Day can remind us of the carefully crafted and fine-tuned home God has made for us. Read more of this post
I don’t know Grant but what I hear is truth that convicts me and challenges me in what I need to/want to seek for the church and my life.
John Piper on the Jesus Follower view of others who are different. You have to get to minute 13!
What comes out of I Corinthians 15 causes me to look back to the ancient. I Corinthians 15 looks back to Jesus’ life. Isaiah 53 looked forward to the Messiah, Jesus.
As interpreted in the Message version of the Old Testament:
1 53 Who believes what we’ve heard and seen? Who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this? 2–6 The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum. But the fact is, it was our pains he carried— our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost. We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him. 7–9 He was beaten, he was tortured, but he didn’t say a word. Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered and like a sheep being sheared, he took it all in silence. Justice miscarried, and he was led off— and did anyone really know what was happening? He died without a thought for his own welfare, beaten bloody for the sins of my people. They buried him with the wicked, threw him in a grave with a rich man, Even though he’d never hurt a soul or said one word that wasn’t true. 10 Still, it’s what God had in mind all along, to crush him with pain. The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin so that he’d see life come from it—life, life, and more life. And God’s plan will deeply prosper through him. 11–12 Out of that terrible travail of soul, he’ll see that it’s worth it and be glad he did it. Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant, will make many “righteous ones,” as he himself carries the burden of their sins. Therefore I’ll reward him extravagantly— the best of everything, the highest honors— Because he looked death in the face and didn’t flinch, because he embraced the company of the lowest. He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many, he took up the cause of all the black sheep.
Repost: see John 21.
Seven of the 11 disciples are at sea and are attempting to catch fish. The Master comes and guides them. A net full of fish results. Jesus gathers them around a fire and they eat roast fish together.
After the meal He turns to Peter and seeks to restore His friend and follower. “Peter, do you love me more than these?”
I can imagine for Peter and arch of pain goes through his stomach. then anguish of soul, and finally release. “Aaah, the Lord is coming for me, He still loves me?” “I will go there with Him.” “Lord, you know I love you,” said Peter. “I will soon be free of this plague of failure which has bound me ever since He died.” “I know my denial sent Him there. Maybe, now I can get past my remorse for failing Him so badly.”
The Lord ask Peter the same question again, and then again. The Lord asks Peter the question three times. It was three times that Peter was asked a question about his association with the Master and denied that he knew the Lord in the courtyard of the high priest’s house in response to each question.
So, what is Jesus doing here on the shore? Jesus wants Peter. He wants Peter to understand that even denial and betrayal is forgivable. Jesus wants Peter to see the resurrected Jesus–the One who died for Peter’s sins and the sins of all others who come seeking forgiveness
Where would Peter have been if the Lord had not pursued him as He did at the shore? How would His life have been different if the Lord never engaged Him directly?
I am seeing this encounter with Peter as life changing. Peter can throw off the sin and turn from his past. Peter will become a new man because of the Lord’s pursuit of him today.
We see the results in the remainder of the New Testament. Peter lives to call men and women to their Savior and to guard and feed the Lord’s sheep. Peter is a great example for us. Though we have sinned and grieved our Lord, we can be renewed and restored. We may hear the call to a flock of a few or of hundreds.
We desperately need to see the Lord pursuing us as He pursued Peter. The Lord seeks to restore us by His love and grace.
Seek Him and you will find Him. He will find you. Know that He does pursue you. Submerge yourself in His love.
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