God's grace

I interrupt the chronology of the blog to the here and now... April 8th, 2011. A great friend of mine challenged me with a verse from the Bible the other day and it really got me thinking. I was so overwhelmed with amazement that I wanted to share some of the things I was reminded of. As I began to think there were two other parts of scripture that came to my mind. Although I dislike sharing just bits and pieces of the Bible while mentioning nothing about the context of the words around them... these verses speak concisely of the themes of God's grace repeated over and over throughout scripture. They are both instances of the apostle Paul describing it. The first comes from Galatians 2:19-21
19 “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
The second comes from 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 "Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
 Wow, how much punch are in those words. Where we are weak, He is strong. Where we fail, He can succeed. Where we are unfaithful, He is faithful. What is absolutely not possible for us is entirely possible for Him. Grace is an undeserved gift that costs the giver everything and the receiver nothing. What have we done that God should extend such mercy and abundant provision to us? I'd like to think that God's grace is all around us every day. That it includes everything from the our salvation in Christ to the ability to get out of bed on two feet and live another miraculous day. One of the biggest illustrations that I have come across was when I took a cell biology class where we took a detailed look at the cell, how it functions, and how it works together with literally trillions of other cells to enable us to experience life as we know it. We depend on hundreds of microscopic events and meticulous chemical reactions in each of these cells every moment to sustain life... and an extremely high percentage of time it all works perfectly. His grace something I will never really grasp... it's so unlike anything else that I've ever known. It doesn't make logical sense. In our world, there is no free lunch and you have to earn what you get. How grateful I am that the focus is not on what we do, it is on what He has done. When His work on the cross was through, He said "It is finished!" And there is nothing that can or needs to be added or taken away from that. Because this is true we are not stuck in a place where we have to impress God, where it is a constant score board in a game that is impossible to win. Instead we can fall before Him, admit where we come up short and have confidence that He will come through where we really need it. Somehow, if we extend ourselves in faith, even if it seems the most awkward and in-effective thing ever... He can still work with that!!! If we stumble over words when we try and tell others about Him... He can use that! He can make something beautiful from some of the smallest acts of our obedience. And He ALLOWS us to be a part of the process. He could have chosen to do it all Himself, or chosen to avoid working in the lives of a human beings altogether. After all, it is a huge mess most of the time because if we are honest, all of us have our share of ugly, nasty, tough stuff. Even the best person in the world has fallen short of perfection. But instead of standing back He has gotten intimately involved... in such a way that He allows us to be a part of His work in each other's lives. How cool is it to see this happening. To have these relationships, to encourage and sharpen each other? To experience Him in ways that we would not otherwise know if He wouldn't have chosen to use us as vessels of His work. To become clearly aware that on our own we are completely lacking. But with Him working in our hearts, and in other ways we are not even aware of... great things can happen. To realize by experience that HE is the way, the truth, and the life and ALL other roads lead to some form of destruction... something less than a life changing and saving connection to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. To see that He really is worthy of all the praise we can ever give Him, that He is the only one who is unshakable, the only one who will never leave our side, the only one who has claimed victory over sin and death, who we can ALWAYS depend on even when others let us down, who rules over all, who never changes, is always faithful, and who no one can stop. And He has made a way for us to be WITH HIM. Not because we did anything to deserve Him, but just because He is that good. WOw. Incredible. And it's funny... this whole train of thought... which is nothing new, but such an encouragment to me... started from what God placed on a friend's heart to share. That is pretty cool too.