Sup Ladies and Gents!
“Grace is getting a free gift that you did nothing to deserve.”
That is the definition of Grace, but what good is the definition if you don’t grasp, believe and ultimately live that understanding out?
I’ve been getting doctrinally rocked lately. My buddy Johnny Kent would be real proud. My lack of love for doctrine, I’ve learned, comes out of a lack of FULL understanding of the doctrine being discussed. Because after all, if doctrine is just a discussion point, and not real life, I’m not sure if it’s still called doctrine. I think It’s called boring.
Grace is today’s topic. Because of truth, it’s turned into my life topic. You can thank Jesus Christ and Judah Smith for that. Jesus wrote the bible, there’s lots of good understanding and examples of grace in there. Judah wrote “Jesus is ____.” Wonderful applicable examples of grace are in there as well.
I actually used to think I understood grace decently well, especially compared to some friends. I know now that my understanding was partial, biased and extremely lack in comparison to the real deal FULL grace that God has offered me.
No condemnation, there’s grace for that.
It turns out there is grace for a lot of things…EVERYTHING in fact.
I understood the grace that was given to me, for my sins, to redeem me. I felt redeemed and loved, but was having difficulty understanding how there was MORE grace available for those who had sinned more than me. (This blog is not about discussing whether all sins are equal in magnitude, I’m just trying to get you inside my mind.)
I didn’t understand how people who had plunged right into everything I was trying to avoid since age 6, didn’t have any lasting ramifications attached. I knew biblically they didn’t of course, but in reality my heart had not caught up.
“Ok cool, here’s grace, God redeems everything you’ve done, ever. You’re free, your new, your whole :).”
I literally have told tons of people that, but never believed deep in my heart that they could be as good and free as me because I hadn’t done some of the stuff they’ve done. Like they’d be good, but they’d never reach “elite” status like me. After all, if I haven’t sinned like that, shouldn’t I be better off?
That is so dead wrong. I finally realized it when I said it out loud. It sounds so evil actually haha. I feel grimey and gross when I say it now. That’s not grace that’s pride and following the “rules”. It sounds just like the Pharisees Jesus so commonly rebuked.
I believe there are two breakthroughs that have led to me understanding FULL grace: 1.Rules and 2.Celebrating that grace is a relationship.
Rules are a funny thing. Especially inside of Christianity. There are a lot of grey area things in the bible. Often Left up to our interpretation. We all think were smart so we interpret them ourselves or follow other well respected people’s interpretations. Not an awful idea. We make rules and judge where we are on Gods scale by how well we follow the rules or convince others to follow the rules.
So here I am thinking I’m pretty good with God because I know the definition of grace, have fun with God and can keep my own rules ha.
It has led to judgement though, depending on where you fall on my rule scale. Let’s take drinking for instance, If you drink more than me you must be sinning, if you drink less you must be legalistic. Either direction was wrong in my mind.
I have to laugh because it’s ridiculous.
The whole time ignoring this free grace that’s abundant. Grace is in FULL, not given in part according to how many sins you’ve committed. Whether you were the sinning type that the world knew was on the highway to hell, or the sinning type that thought they were a saint, God’s grace is plenty needed and plenty sufficient. I get the same FULL awesome grace as every other retired sinner on the planet.
Next I thought to myself, “you know, I get grace, And I actually don’t make THAT many rules for myself. Or others. But where I do is sexual boundaries. I wanna stay pure for my wife. So I won’t budge on these. These rules are needed.” Then I realized, everywhere I put up a boundary or rule is a place that I don’t actually trust that God’s grace could redeem me from that sin.
Bingo. Found the problem.
So if I had sex before marriage, got belligerent drunk, or (fill in the blank) I would lose this “elite” status with God. I could never return from that.
Wake up call, there’s no elite status, just being a child of God. Which is better than being elite anyways. We can’t earn it, nothing I do right or wrong will make me more or less a child of God. I was reborn in Jesus by his grace and that’s why I am a child of God. Forever.
So I want to apologize right now to all the people that I’ve judged for not “being in my level” or correctly keeping my “Jake-made rules”. I definitely put these ideas on others. It’s put space in between you and me and my father and me.
***by the way I’m not saying it’s bad to have boundaries ha. They are a wise choice.***
Let’s move on.
The more we try not to sin, the more we think about sin. Then we put up more rules to not sin, thus putting the focus of our victory on how well or long we fight. But eventually we sin.
Even if we were victorious, is that God’s goal? For us to become sinless? Think about it, it’s actually God’s desire that we fall head over heels in love with him. He created us for relationship, not to be good at keeping rules. It’s miserable, setting up rules that keep us from doing what our being desires to do. Constant battle. Instead, let’s fall in love with Jesus, and let him change our desires. Sinning is no longer attractive, Jesus is.
Most of us miss this and wonder why being a Christian sucks haha. We pretend like it’s good, but let’s be honest you can tell who is really enjoying their walk with God and who isn’t. It coincides to those who have met and accepted that grace is sufficient a they don’t have to worry about being sinless anymore, they’re simply righteous. Mine as well live it up.
See they’ve met Jesus, the real one. Jesus is grace, grace is Jesus.
That’s why sinning becomes senseless. Why would I sin? Living in grace is SO much better :). Being in a relationship with the grace that is Jesus is better than anything else out there. The more you become obsessively in love with Jesus the less sin looks good, the more it looks like reality. The more IT looks sucky.
I don’t miss sin. It’s like the person who is used to eating McDonald’s fast food burgers. They move onto juicy NY steak. The last thing on their mind is “man I wish I had a dollar menu burger.” Especially when the steak also happens to be free :).
I told God that I wanted to understand his grace better. It was either gunna take me sinning more so I could completely understand it the way some of my friends did, or he would just have to take care of it. He chose the latter.
Not long after I got a simple vision of my friends glorified in wedding dresses/ suites. They were beautiful and immaculate. So blessed and redeemed. Restored and glowing. They had received Gods FULL grace. Nothing was on them, no marks from past blemishes. They were beautiful. Jesus was in the background radiant as ever. His eyes full of grace, his smile full of joy. It was amazing. I could finally see these people the way Jesus did. Redeemed, restored children of the high king and loving father. Children FULL of expansive grace :).
My prayer is that every one of you experiences this FULL grace.
Love,
Jacob
Ephesians 2:6-8 (MSG)
“He took our sin dead lives an made us alive in Christ. He did all of this in his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah. Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in the world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s Gods gift from start to finish.”
