I must have been six... maybe seven. A first grader, I know. My parents gained income after moving to a new, big city by my mother providing care for the children of a family transferred with us. I wanted to that baby to want me. To need me. I wanted someone to need me because I felt so lost in that season. I distinctly remember walking into the room where she had been asleep in a play pen (because things were not so fancy at that time for the name Pack-n-Play to have been coined. It was simply, play pen.), but she was now awake. I reached my hands, that I thought had much more age and authority than in actuality, out to her wanting her to reach back for me, but she didn't. The baby didn't need me. And she definitely didn't want me. But I longed for that. So I sinned. I did something I knew was wrong. I reached and pinched the baby. I hurt her with the sole purpose of comforting her. She began to cry, as I knew she would. But this time when I extended my arms, she reached back. Just as I needed her to. I became the baby's comfort.
This morning, I watched my youngest point to drops of water that had spilled from her cup onto the ottoman. I took her to the kitchen, gave her a rag and led her back to the spill. She used the rag to wipe up the mess. She made the mess disappear. And so she repeated it. Only this time, not an accident. She poured the water, one drip at a time with purpose. To clean it. To make it right. Pure. She knew she shouldn't, but she, already, likes the role of making things right. Being the rescuer.
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.
The concept makes sense to our feeble minds. God offers grace. Grace is good. But it is not a token for sin. It is an extension of his love. Of his kindness. Of his son.
But do we live as though this truth resonates deeply within us?
We make choices, as believers in the truth of Jesus Christ, knowing, subconsciously, that grace will be extended. At that point, we miss it. The goal of grace. The purpose of his extension of goodness to our hearts. His grace should compel us.
If we are “out of our mind,” as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
His grace, lovely and unable to match with words, compels us to want to be more... more like Him. The giver of all things good. The one who graciously carved us out of nothing, to make us heirs.
It's fair for me to know that if I accept his grace, it I stay as I am, if I continue in a life of sin, a life of anything less than learning daily to be like Him, maybe I don't understand grace. Or grace in it's fullness.
For the love of Christ is enough to compel me to love the most unloveable. And the grace of Christ is enough to drive me further and further from the me of old and closer and closer to the new of Him, to wisdom and purity and goodness that can fill my heart through Christ alone.
So I ask myself this morning, am I pinching? Am I spilling? All with a need. The need to comfort. The need to clean and purify and rescue. Because even if I do good things, without the forethought of Christ they are just that... good things. But if I walk in a state of acknowledgment of his grace extended to me and it compels me to extend anything lovely to others, then that, is grace understood. Grace lived. Further from the things of old. Old me. Old ways. Old patterns. Old tendencies. And closer to the things of new. New love. New compassion. New mercy. New grace. New beauty. Christ.
The one who makes all things new.
“From now on I will tell you of new things, of hidden things unknown to you. They are created now, and not long ago; you have not heard of them before today. So you cannot say, ‘Yes, I knew of them.’ You have neither heard nor understood; from of old your ears have not been open. Well do I know how treacherous you are; you were called a rebel from birth. For my own name’s sake I delay my wrath; for the sake of my praise I hold it back from you, so as not to destroy you completely. See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this. How can I let myself be defamed? I will not yield my glory to another.
As I love my husband, if I do it for his returned love, I fail. I love him as I have been loved by Christ and I hope to extend the same manor of grace to him. If I comfort and encourage my children for the goal of self-confident children, I fail. I comfort and encourage them because of the comfort and encouragement that I have received from Christ and I want to extend the same grace to them. If I welcome my family into my home because I want them to be impressed anything I offer, I fail. I welcome people into my home because I have been welcomed into a kingdom that doesn't parish, spoil, or fade and I was adopted into that kingdom, not a natural born child... so I want to extend that same loving, gracious welcome. If I enjoy my friends because I want to keep them, I fail. I enjoy them because God has offered enjoyment, satisfaction through him alone and I want to extend that same grace.
With a heart purposely set on acknowledging the ongoing gift of grace, I hope that the Lord allows me to walk in a state of grace.
Offering only what he has already offered.
Nothing thought up.
Nothing of me.
Only of him.
For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.
Grace accepted and understood compels us.
Compelling grace.
This morning, I watched my youngest point to drops of water that had spilled from her cup onto the ottoman. I took her to the kitchen, gave her a rag and led her back to the spill. She used the rag to wipe up the mess. She made the mess disappear. And so she repeated it. Only this time, not an accident. She poured the water, one drip at a time with purpose. To clean it. To make it right. Pure. She knew she shouldn't, but she, already, likes the role of making things right. Being the rescuer.
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.
The concept makes sense to our feeble minds. God offers grace. Grace is good. But it is not a token for sin. It is an extension of his love. Of his kindness. Of his son.
But do we live as though this truth resonates deeply within us?
We make choices, as believers in the truth of Jesus Christ, knowing, subconsciously, that grace will be extended. At that point, we miss it. The goal of grace. The purpose of his extension of goodness to our hearts. His grace should compel us.
If we are “out of our mind,” as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
His grace, lovely and unable to match with words, compels us to want to be more... more like Him. The giver of all things good. The one who graciously carved us out of nothing, to make us heirs.
It's fair for me to know that if I accept his grace, it I stay as I am, if I continue in a life of sin, a life of anything less than learning daily to be like Him, maybe I don't understand grace. Or grace in it's fullness.
For the love of Christ is enough to compel me to love the most unloveable. And the grace of Christ is enough to drive me further and further from the me of old and closer and closer to the new of Him, to wisdom and purity and goodness that can fill my heart through Christ alone.
So I ask myself this morning, am I pinching? Am I spilling? All with a need. The need to comfort. The need to clean and purify and rescue. Because even if I do good things, without the forethought of Christ they are just that... good things. But if I walk in a state of acknowledgment of his grace extended to me and it compels me to extend anything lovely to others, then that, is grace understood. Grace lived. Further from the things of old. Old me. Old ways. Old patterns. Old tendencies. And closer to the things of new. New love. New compassion. New mercy. New grace. New beauty. Christ.
The one who makes all things new.
“From now on I will tell you of new things, of hidden things unknown to you. They are created now, and not long ago; you have not heard of them before today. So you cannot say, ‘Yes, I knew of them.’ You have neither heard nor understood; from of old your ears have not been open. Well do I know how treacherous you are; you were called a rebel from birth. For my own name’s sake I delay my wrath; for the sake of my praise I hold it back from you, so as not to destroy you completely. See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this. How can I let myself be defamed? I will not yield my glory to another.
As I love my husband, if I do it for his returned love, I fail. I love him as I have been loved by Christ and I hope to extend the same manor of grace to him. If I comfort and encourage my children for the goal of self-confident children, I fail. I comfort and encourage them because of the comfort and encouragement that I have received from Christ and I want to extend the same grace to them. If I welcome my family into my home because I want them to be impressed anything I offer, I fail. I welcome people into my home because I have been welcomed into a kingdom that doesn't parish, spoil, or fade and I was adopted into that kingdom, not a natural born child... so I want to extend that same loving, gracious welcome. If I enjoy my friends because I want to keep them, I fail. I enjoy them because God has offered enjoyment, satisfaction through him alone and I want to extend that same grace.
With a heart purposely set on acknowledging the ongoing gift of grace, I hope that the Lord allows me to walk in a state of grace.
Offering only what he has already offered.
Nothing thought up.
Nothing of me.
Only of him.
For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.
Grace accepted and understood compels us.
Compelling grace.
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