Thinking About Grace...Part 11

Yesterday evening, I was reading an article (catching up on some of the stuff I should be reading) on a church leaders website, and in the midst of the article was a story about a pastor whose daughter had gotten pregnant. Almost immediately, when the church was made aware of the situation, a group in the church called for the pastor's resignation and became quite vocal about it. Unfortunately, the article didn't detail how things had ended up. But it made me angry. I wondered if those same folks would "resign" from the church if their daughters became pregnant...or their sons got arrested...or they were found possessing drugs...or anything else they would define as unforgivable sin.

The world is full of ungrace.

And it makes me angry every time I encounter it.

But it's nothing new. Paul, the guy who wrote most of the New Testament, ran into it all the time. From the very moment he gave his life to Jesus, Paul encountered those who didn't believe that he had really been converted, folks who wanted to run him out of town, who wouldn't listen to him because he used to persecute their kind. Now, I understand their misgivings, and I would probably have been among them wondering if he was just trying out some new, dastardly plan. But few were the people who were willing to take a chance on Paul. What if they hadn't? Would the Gospel have spread as widely as it did without Paul? And what would our New Testament consist of? Take out Paul and see what is left...

God took a risk when he entrusted the great missionary enterprise to a former persecutor of the church. Those early Christians might have embraced ungrace and rejected Paul and the message he came to bring. And we would be the poorer if they had. Thank God they did not.

In fact, it was Paul who reminded us that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).

All.

Not some.

All. You, me, everyone. All.

Paul knew that all too well, which is why, when confronted with ungrace, Paul offered the grace of Jesus. No matter how many times he encountered ungrace, he responded with grace. Because all have sinned, even if they don't recognize or admit it, and all fall short of God's glory. And Paul knew very well that without grace, we have no hope of ever reaching God's glory.

All have sinned. All need grace. And all can receive grace.

But first we have to drop the battering ram of ungrace.

Because we can't run into the arms of grace if we're holding onto other things.

I also read yesterday about a pastor friend of mine who confessed an addiction to his church, then to his District Superintendent, then on Facebook. And each and every time, he found people of grace, people who recognized their own sin and surrounded him with love and support. He has begun to be set free by the power of grace. Thanks be to God for the body of Christ and expressions of grace.


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