The main declaration of the Reformation proclaims: Through no merit of ours, but by His mercy, we have been restored to a right relationship with God through the life, death, and resurrection of His beloved Son. This is the Good News, the gospel of grace.
I struggle with the gospel… At times it is a glorious mystery, other times it makes me so angry, yet still it can bring me to my knees in a state of broken disbelief. This has to be the hardest part about the gospel for me: Grace. How is it that a good and righteous God would do anything, much less die for me? Doesn’t he know what I have done? Doesn’t he know who I am?
I was recently gifted a book called, “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”(go ahead, do yourself a favor and buy it here: The Ragamuffin Gospel) by my mentor and friend Greg. He knows I love books and so he graciously (look there’s that word again) gifted me several books that have made an impact in his own life so I can read them on the Race. I kinda got ahead of myself and started reading this one. I am going to be sharing quite a bit of it in this post.
Excerpt from the Ragamuffin Gospel:
“While there is much we may have earned—our degree, our salary, our home and garden, a Miller Lite, and a good night’s sleep—all this is possible only because we have been given so much: life itself, eyes to see and hands to touch, a mind to shape ideas, and a heart to beat with love. We have been given God in our souls and Christ in our flesh. We have the power to believe where others deny, to hope where others despair, to love where others hurt. This and so much more is sheer gift; it is not reward for our faithfulness, our generous disposition, or our heroic life of prayer. Even our fidelity is a gift. ‘If we but turn to God’, said St. Augustine, ‘that itself is a gift of God.’ My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.”
Paul says in a letter to the Ephesian church, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (2:8-9)
This is difficult for me because I want to EARN it. I want to deserve it because of what I have done. I want to think that God looked down at me and said “now that is a guy that I want, because of how good he is he would make a great addition to my family”. But that was not the case. He did say “now that is a guy that I want” and “he would make a great addition to my family”, but he didn’t do it because I was soo good and deserved anything.
The Gospel of Grace hits my right in chest and stops me in my tracks. It defeats the lie that I was worth anything in of myself when he hand picked me and chose me.
“Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life…It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: ‘You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you…Do not try to do anything now, perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything, do not perform anything, do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted.’ If that happens to us, we experience grace.”
“Never confuse your perception of yourself with the mystery that you really are accepted.”
“Whatever our failings may be, we need not lower our eyes in the presence of Jesus. Unlike Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame, we need not hide all that is ugly and repulsive in us. Jesus comes not for the super-spiritual but for the wobbly and the weak-kneed who know they don’t have it all together, and who are not too proud to accept the handout of amazing grace. As we glance up, we are astonished to find the eyes of Jesus open with wonder, deep with understanding, and gentle with compassion.”
“At the cross, Jesus unmasks the sinner not only as a beggar but as a criminal before God. Jesus Christ bore our sins and bore them away.”
“The sinner saved by grace is haunted by Calvary, by the cross, and especially by the question, Why did He die?…The answer lies in love.”
“But the answer seems too easy, too glib. Yes, God saved us because He loved us. But He is God. He has infinite imagination. Couldn’t he have dreamed up a different redemption? If He had to die, then for God’s sake-for Christ’s sake-couldn’t he have died in bed, died with dignity? Why was he condemned like a criminal? Why was his back flayed with whips? Why was he nailed to wood and allowed to die in frightful, lonely agony? Why was the last breath drawn in bloody disgrace, while the world for which He lay dying egged on His executioners with savage fury like some kind of gang rape by uncivilized brutes in Central Park?…One thing we do know: We don’t comprehend the love of Jesus Christ.”
“The saved sinner is prostrate in adoration, lost in wonder and praise. He knows repentance is not what we do in order to earn forgiveness; it is what we do because we have been forgiven. It serves as an expression of gratitude rather than an effort to earn forgiveness. This the sequence of forgiveness and then repentance, rather than repentance and then forgiveness, is crucial for understanding the gospel of grace”
Can you tell I like this book??
I struggle with the gospel because I struggle to earn God’s love despite the fact that he freely gives it. I have a hard time accepting the fact that I am accepted by God! I am the grump in the corner that stays in the cell, even when the chains are taken off and the door is opened wide. This cell has become too comfortable.
But now I want to push past the comfortable and into the unknown. I hear it is better over there. So here I go…
I AM ACCEPTED BY GOD!!!!
The World Race is going to be a time of living and operating out of Grace. Testing the waters of living for Him in new and challenging ways. I can’t wait to have you all join with me on this journey.
Grace is what God has been pouring over me these past several months. Undeserved, unearned, abundant grace. And can I be totally honest with you, I don’t like it, but I love it. It hurts me, but it completes me. It feels like I am being stabbed right in the chest, but there is something so beautiful about it!!
I want to take the time to list off some of the ways that God has been amazingly gracious to me lately:
- He has surrounded me with a huge support network that genuinely cares about me and wants to see God do great things through me.
- I am almost FULLY FUNDED!!!! What?? (This is so hard to believe, because I don’t truly feel as though I have done anything spectacular to earn this…ain’t that grace?)
- I have a such a loving church family both here in The Woodlands, TX and back in Cashiers, NC that are actively participating in this journey with me.
- I have a boss that wants to know how I am doing in my daily life, not just caring about what I am producing.
- I have friends that take care of my daily needs: cars, food, money, and maybe a few things I don’t need but want (a nice pair of Oakley’s)
- I have a doctor now that is giving me free medical attention!!
- I have a wonderful group of men that surround me with true brotherly accountability and love.
- I have mentors that see me and encourage me.
- I have a family that supports me in whatever I choose to do.
- I have a sister that cleans my bathroom 🙂 (it also doubles as the guest bathroom but still)
I could go on and on with all of these blessings. But everyone of these is a gift. It is a gift that is undeserved. Unmerited. And I didn’t do a single thing to earn them. They were bestowed on me by a loving and generous Father. And my pride hates it! But my spirit loves it!
I struggle with so many things on a daily basis, I don’t have it all together as I like to claim. I struggle with comparing myself to the people around me. I struggle with wanting what others have. Wanting to be as successful as the people on stage, or that guy behind the Mercedes Benz’. I compare myself to the guy who has the six-pack and ripped muscles that glides past me as I fumble, huffing and puffing on my so-called “run”. I compare myself to the person who seems to have it all together in church.
But what am I really doing? Do I not see the hand of God in my life? Do I not realize all the good things He is doing? Nope, I am too fixated on myself to see past it. I ruminate over and over what I don’t have rather than what I do! What is really going on here? I think it is simple.
I think it is a distraction technique deployed by Satan to get me off track of my purpose that God has set on me. To tempt and lure me away from serving and loving others the way He did. So when I go down that path I must look up, and look out! There is someone He wants to reach out to with the Gospel of Grace!
We are HIS hands and feet to the NATIONS!!
