Words About Grace

Grace is never deserved.  Grace is always given, or it ceases to be grace.  Grace is about receiving.  Grace is to the soul as blood is to the human body.  To reach the years defined as older enables us to know that life is about grace received and grace given.  "To whom much is given, much is expected..." (Luke 12:48) is a Biblical word that is used often in the context of stewardship, but when taken seriously it ripples across the whole of life.  Even as the gift of grace overflows the spiritual containers of our life, so is it to spill out into the lives of those around us.    

In a recent reading it was pointed out that the church and those of us who are its loyalist live more by the Ten Commandments than the Eight Beatitudes.  One takes us down the road of judgment and the other takes us down the road of grace.  When our life is in a mess because of the wrong choices we have made, we really need no one to tell us how sinful we are, but what we need is someone to assure us that there is forgiveness in the grace of God.  Sometimes life asks us to give ourselves grace and sometimes it asks us to give grace to others.  When anyone of us reflects honestly over the years that are past, we realize that we have gotten thus far because of the grace of God.  

This grace is not just shown in the number of years we have lived, but in the way it has given us permission to live as one who is enabled to live without carrying shame and self reproach from the past into the future God is unfolding before us.  When we have sinned and made a mess of our life, we did not receive a "wink" or a "pass" from God, but forgiveness.  We received grace.  The Scripture tells us "as far as the east is from the west, so far He removes our transgressions from us."  (Psalm 103:12).  As He has given to us, so may we give to others.