Grace

It’s one of those words that is hard to define and hard to describe, yet it is part of the foundation of my faith in Jesus. It is a beautiful paradox that what we love can be so simple and yet so complex at the same time. I know it in my heart, yet I cannot describe or understand it completely.

Grace. Preachers and teachers have tried to explain the concept. It is cutting us slack when we don’t deserve it, giving something without merit, receive favor when it has not been earned. These definitions reach for the answer, yet I feel that they are incomplete.

I have said that Justice is when God takes something that has gone wrong and makes it right. Grace functions through the same principle. God takes what is offered and perfects it by accepting the offering as more than it is.

Now wait a minute, some of your say. You cannot earn grace. You don’t have to offer anything. “We are saved by grace, through faith, and not by works.” Yes, I believe Paul’s words, but I don’t think he meant that you sit back and do nothing and let God do all the work. You have to step up first.

After all, Paul said that to go on sinning on WRONG. Jesus said that his people will be known by their FRUITS, that is, by what they DO. So grace does depend on what we do, and yet it doesn’t.

Paradox. God’s good at those.

God doesn’t judge us by how good we are, how many people we fed or how many times we shared the Good News. He doesn’t expect us to do everything perfectly because he knows we can’t. Remember the parable of the talents. Some receive ten, some five, some one. What mattered was what each servant did with the talents they had received. Did they use them, or hide them? Do we seek God and give him our whole effort, or not?

Grace comes into play when we reach up to God, but our tiny arms are too short to breach the distance, so God reaches down as far as he needs to and takes hold of us. But we’ll never touch him if we don’t reach up.

Jesus gave the perfect sacrifice because he gave everything he was, everything he had, he submitted completely to God’s will. Now, God asks exactly the same thing of us. Give all you have, do all you can, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul.” When you try, God accepts your effort and its fruit. He does the rest.

But he doesn’t have anything to do if you don’t take action. You have to give God something before he can extend you grace, because grace happens when God takes what you have given and makes it perfect by accepting it.

We can give grace in our daily lives. Parents do it every single day when their children present them with crayon drawings and lopsided art projects or a badly cooked breakfast in bread. Does a good parent toss the offering away, or tell the child they must go back and color inside the lines? No! The Mom or Dad accepts the gift with praise and hangs it on the refrigerator. It’s the thought that counts, the effort, the act of trying, that makes all the difference.

God has called us to action. Grace is powerless without action. But when we move toward God’s will, he makes up the difference. This is the message I trust with all my heart, so I reach my hand up as high as I can and hold on tight and God takes care of the rest.