Friday, July 12, 2013

"Greasy Grace" - Why I Don't Agree

Greasy grace - boy, do I hate that term.  It's most often heard from the people in the church who are most afraid that giving extravagant grace will allow people to just do whatever they want.  My question is, if it's the love of Christ that constrains us (2 Corinthians 5:14), then if someone is actually walking in relationship with God they won't want to do the things that we consider "sin".  Plus, we can't crucify sin without Christ - we don't have the ability or the power to do it for ourselves.  I can know that I shouldn't do something, and actually not want to do it, but trying to change in my own power and ability is virtually useless.  People don't like to preach that type of grace - that nothing is being held against you any longer and Christ has paid ALL THE PRICE needed for you to come into relationship with God - because of fear.  It's totally and completely fear based - if we tell people that they don't have to pay a price through their behavior then they won't change their behavior, and we'll have drunks and druggies and gays and all manner of sinner in our church!  Then we'll have to deal with these people in love!  And we'll need to explain their behavior to our kids!  It's fear of those different than us, and it's why we've tried to homogenize the church.  We've put forward the idea that we all need to look the same, act the same, follow the same rules, and then we can be unified in love.  But we aren't all the same.  We don't all have the same struggles, but we do all have struggles.  We all have areas of sin in our lives that we can not overcome unless Jesus helps us.  Things that we have tried to conquer on our own over and over and over again and failed miserably each time.  

The thing is that each failure actually tends to push us away from God instead of toward Him, because we feel like it's our responsibility to clean ourselves up to make us worthy of His attention and love.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  The Father wants us to come with Him with a clear understanding that we can not fix ourselves, and submit ourselves to His love and mercy so that He, as the Master Potter, can.

Father, I ask today that you give us a more complete understanding of Your grace for us.  I ask for each reader that You come in and do the work in them that they can not do themselves.  We ask together that Your hands be on us, molding and shaping us into the people You created us to be.  And we thank you that there is NOTHING that can separate us from Your love and mercy.  Nothing stands in the way of our relationship with You in Christ.  Thank you for your love.  In Jesus' name, Amen.

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