GRACE

It is a word I have heard and sung about since a small child. But when I began reading Philip Yancey's book What's so Amazing about Grace? I found I really didn't get it.

"Grace means that there is nothing we can do to make God love us more. And grace means that there is nothing we can do to make God love us less."
(page 70, What's so Amazing about Grace?)

I have begun to understand God a little more by comparing him to an earthly father. For example, in the prodigal son story, the father raises his son and loves him more than anything. But one day the son decides to leave and go do things on his own in his own way. The father worries non-stop and waits next to the window, hoping that one day his son will find his way back home. He is angry and hurt that the son left, but would rather have him back in his arms than have him wandering among dangers he cannot protect him from. But one day…one day he sees a figure off in the distance. Could it be? My son? "Set the table! Prepare his favorite foods! Gather the whole family around the table! We have to celebrate my son's return!"

This is how God reacts when any of His children returns to Him. And He doesn't just sit idly, watching His children suffer and loose their way.  He actively calls us to extend His grace to those around us.

How can I be an extension of God's grace?
Especially to the women I will come face to face with in Cambodia?
Women who have been abused and hurt in so many ways. God has given them a second chance at life…they just don't know it yet. He has a message for them (and for each and every one of His children)…

"You are loved more deeply than you can imagine…more deeply than you think you deserve.
You are more beautiful than you have ever felt in your life…unique from any other creature on earth.
You are forgiven for anything and everything you have done in your life that seems bad.
You are not responsible for the wrongs that have been committed against you."

"The God who created the heavens and the earth has the power to bridge the great chasm that separates Him from His creatures."
(page 65, What's so Amazing about Grace?)

We have absolutely no power to push God away from us. We may try as hard as we want to stop His love and second chance at life from reaching our hearts, but how could we possibly stop the One who created a 29,000 foot mountain and a trillion shining stars? If He wants us bad enough, He will go to all lengths to do it…

But sometimes it is hard to see grace extended to others. Just like in the parable of the workers who work all day long and get the same pay as those that work one hour, we want fairness and justice. What we forget is

"that God dispenses gifts, not wages. None of us gets paid according to merit, for none of us comes close to satisfying God's requirements for a perfect life…In the bottom-line realm of ungrace, some workers deserve more pay that others; in the realm of grace the word deserve does not even apply." (page 62, What's so Amazing about Grace?)

"For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins." (Romans 3:21-25 ESV)