God of Grace

This is basically what my outline was for my Sunday preach....give or take a bit. Your thoughts/comments would be very welcome! ~A.

God is a god of grace. Do you believe it?
Too often we try to shut God into some kind of a "box of our own understanding" so that we don't have to change who we are in the process of understanding our Creator.

The greek (Charis) and hebrew (Chen)words for grace can be translated into 'goodwill' or 'favour'. The Meriam-Webster dictionary defines grace as "the unmerited GIFT of DIVINE FAVOUR which brings about the salvation of a sinner".

What I love about grace is that it is favour that is unmerited. There is nothing you can do to deserve grace. It is a gift that is given, not a prize that has been earned. What I especially love about the grace of God, is that he so often extends it to people who you would least expect it.

God extended grace to Ninevah.
He extended grace to Rahab, a prostitute who protected Jewish soldiers during battle...not only was her life spared, but she is included in Jesus' family line as one of his ancestors.
To a woman caught in adultery, facing a crowd of people waiting to stone her to death, Jesus spared her, not because she wasn't guilty or deserving of that punishment, but because extending grace was more important than carrying out the letter of the law. Imagine what their lives must have been like after experiencing this grace-full God...being given a second chance to start fresh.

I think of my mom, who if you have heard her and her sisters' story of abuse, you would say she has every right to be angry and bitter at the world, but she's not. I have friends who were once drug addicts, witches, prostitutes, and violent men and women, become gentle, peaceable, loving individuals. It is not through self-help books, or anger-management courses, that they experienced this change of character, but engaging with a God of grace, who changed their hearts and lives in a real, tangible way.

We sing songs like "To be like Jesus"...but do we really mean those words? Are we willing to step outside of ourselves and extend grace to the person beside us? Our neighbors? Our co-workers? What needs to change to make us a people of Grace? Have we even experienced this God of Grace for ourselves, or is He always in our minds this legalistic monster shaking a finger at us for every wrong we have ever committed? If there is grace for a prostitute, why not grace for me? If I have experienced Grace in my life, doesn't it make sense for me to extend grace to those around me as well? I want to be a people of Grace. The church has tried shaking it's finger long enough. Maybe it's time we tried grace.

Sunday, Sunday...

I preached yesterday, on Grace. I led worship, too. Then I slept for five hours straight and missed Bible study...whoops! I never knew singing and speaking could drain you so much, but it did. Maybe next time I'll remember a glass of water....and sleep during the night like normal people.

I wanna love people the way Mother Theresa loved people...that she could hang out with stinky dying people lying in their own waste and not cringe, that she could see beyond the crap, and the dirt, and the wasting away diseases, and hold dying people and be family to people who no one else cared to look at. THAT'S the gospel of Christ that I want to live.
What do you want?

food for thought...

"Religion is like language or dress.
We gravitate toward the practices with which we were raised.
In the end, though, we are all proclaiming the same thing.
That life has meaning.
That we are grateful for the power that created us.....

Faith is universal.
Our specific methods for understanding it are arbitrary.
Some of us pray to Jesus, some of us go to Mecca,
some of us study subatomic particles.
In the end we are all just searching for truth,
that which is greater than ourselves....

Science tells me God must exist.
My mind tells me I will never understand God.
And my heart tells me I am not meant to."
-Vittoria Vetra in Dan Brown's adventure novel,Angels and Demons


Are we all the same?
Can we understand God?
your thoughts, please....

"LOST"

Anyone see the new episode of LOST this week? It went into the life of Mr Echo, this Nigerian dude who writes scripture verses on a big stick he takes everywhere with him. Thing is, as with everyone in this series, he has a dark past...as a drug dealer. The story shows him being dragged off with these drug-dealer types as a child. He was taken by them, his younger brother was left in the village.
(Remember Jesus' parable about the workers in the vinyard? Same principle, different side doing the 'taking', though.)

The show skips ahead several years to another meeting of the brothers as adults. Mr. Echo is now a skilled killer and his name is known throughout the country as a man you don't want to cross. His brother, is a priest. There's this powerful scene where he's asking his brother for a favor and to hear his confession, but his brother says "I know God will forgive me, but he won't forgive you." OUCH!!

Is this sometimes the way we view evangelism? Is this the way we demonstrate the grace of God to our brothers who have gone through the torture of living hell on earth, and when they finally step inside the church we gloat over them saying "God will forgive ME...." Shame, church. Shame.

Remember, Jesus was the only one who stood up for the woman caught in adultery.
Jesus promised a thief he would see paradise as he hung beside him, dying.
Jesus spotted Nicodemus, the scum of the earth tax collector sitting in a tree, and invited him to have tea.
Jesus is looking for people who are desperate for Him.
And when those desperate people come into our circle, what do we do?
Do we share with them the hope we have in a Resurrection life today, or do we shun them based on some kind of karma theology and try to make them buy or work off their sins before being allowed into the fellowship of the saints...as if they could do enough good to make up for a life full of bad decisions, anyway?
Jesus paid the price for our sins. Will we continue to crucify Him in our ungrace, or will we embrace His lost sheep and celebrate in their coming home?

count your blessings!

I am in Maine.
I have an apartment that's big enough for visitors, guests, wandering travellers, etc.
I have a phone (once I put in the new batteries!)
I have food in the fridge.
I have a fridge!
I have a car. (THAT was a suprise to me!)
I have a cat.
I have a bed. (so was that!)
I have friends and family that love me.

All of these things will come and go in their time, but one thing is constant, one thing is the same. Jesus is the same today as He was Yesterday, and forever. Heaven and Earth will pass away, but God's word will never pass away!
Praise the Lord, for He is good, and His LOVE ENDURES FOREVER!!!!

"YHWH gives and He takes away. May the name of YHWH be praised." Job 1:21

It is for freedom...

The thing about having the freedom to do what you want, is that you sometimes end up doing nothing in the face of all the possibilities out there.

The thing about moving from 'friendship' to a position of 'authority' is that a lot of people have problems with authority. I think of leaders who have led me, and some of the main factors have been passion, trust, and discipline.

You have to be passionate about what you're doing or you'll burn out.
You need to have trust in order to form a bond.
You need to have discipline in order to maintain your standing in the race. (Runners who don't stay disciplined can't stay competitive)


"It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1 NASB