Skip to main content

Falling into Grace

 


                                           







Falling into grace... I heard this phrase a few days ago in the lyrics of a Christian song. It caught my attention so readily that I thought about it for days. It sounded good - even musical, but what did this really mean? 

Scripture is full of people who needed to do nothing short of the same. Adam and Eve messed up a perfect plan so badly by taking the word of the serpent over God's word. They found themselves naked, hiding, and frantically trying to cover themselves and their sin. Moses ran away - a long way from home for losing his temper and killing an Egyptian, Joseph's brothers, after many years, bowed before him after such ill-treatment of their brother were starving and needed food for their families,  And the woman at the well, ashamed of her past and her current living situation met Jesus, who willingly met her where she was.  Peter, who promised never to forsake Jesus, did it not once but three times... All these people of the past, and people like you and I have at least one thing in common, we all need grace for the times we have messed up. Big sin, little sin, major crime, minor crime - it really didn't matter then, and it still doesn't today. We all need the one thing not deserved - grace. 

 So, taking the fig leaf approach, or pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, to fix your faults prolongs the inevitable. Instead, relinquish control and resist the idea of fixing and covering faults which would only cause us to fall short rather than into the grace Jesus offers.

 So, friend, whatever it is, lay it down and surrender it. Fall into His grace so freely offered. You will be glad you did. 

But He told me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

2 Corinthians 12:9

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

When People Make Life Hard

"Well, are you going just to stand there or do something?" It was my first year of teaching, and I had learned quickly that the cafeteria was a no-talking zone for anyone. Students were expected to enter in silence, eat in the same manner, and exit without a word. So, staring at the horror on the child's face, the disapproval of my principal, and my feet surrounded by the mess on the floor, from the dropped tray, I froze. It didn't appear that either of us would experience any mercy. Sometimes, people just make life hard. It's not a new problem; it's an ancient one. Exodus chapter 5 has much to say about the perils of dealing with difficult people. In this chapter, the Israelites are enslaved people in Egypt under a Pharaoh who is quite a taskmaster and knows nothing about his slaves except that they can make many bricks every single day. Things get pretty ugly when Moses and Aaron are sent to free the Israelites from their bondage. Pharaoh had no intention o...

Christian Chameleons

  As a teacher and administrator for the past thirty-one years, I have learned the powerful messages that are hidden within the pages of children's literature. Even as an adult, I identify with the character in Eric Carle's book, The Mixed-up Chameleon. It's the story of a young chameleon who just wanted to be like everyone else. So, unsatisfied with who he was on a particular day, he took on the likeness of every animal he met. Satisfied for a while, he later realized he had assumed the characteristics of so many different animals that he could no longer find himself. As believers in Jesus Christ, isn't this our story at times? We come to believe it is permissible for something or someone other than God to shape our character. In doing so, we become Christian chameleons and compromise our convictions for comfort to be like the rest of the world. Staying true to our convictions and beliefs nowadays is tough to do! The world cries out to us through media, music, literatu...

Hello Sixty

                              R ecently, I had one of those significant birthdays, another milestone, a wake-up moment that reminded me that I don't have forever left - at least not this side of heaven. I don't want to make too big a deal out of skipping from one decade to the next, but how did time pass so quickly? One minute, I am graduating from college, only to realize I now have four years left until retirement. In an instant, it seemed I had shifted from a new mother to a grandmother. Just yesterday, I was driving kids to the pool, hosting sleepovers, packing for camps, and shopping for school supplies. Still, nowadays, I rarely step foot in a pool or participate in any of those other activities. As I reflect on all these changes that came so slowly at the time yet now appear to have happened in a mere flash of light, I am tempted to make an argument for time travel. Not really, but things have changed - r...