Despise grace // despise God
If we don't get grace we don't get anything.
When we misunderstand grace we create an idol of a God who we will only ever end up despising. We construct an image of an almost but not quite sufficient God. God enough for us to worship but not God enough to save us completely. We create a God who couldn’t quite make the full journey to rescue us so we somehow need to make up the difference, saving ourselves. We construct a task master God, always angry, always wanting, always asking. This God with his list of requirements and tick boxes requires you to save yourself. This God sent His only son to live amongst us as a man and face a criminals death but was somehow unable to provide a fully sufficient sacrifice. This is the God we construct when we misinterpret Grace.
When we underestimate grace we mock God for his inability to totally pull it off Himself. We carve new self-salvation plans making idols of ourselves as those who play a part in our own salvation. We adjust the wonder of the legal transaction of the cross so that justification by Jesus becomes justification by self. If only God can provide salvation, then in trying to save ourselves we try and become God. When we misunderstand grace we construct a God who is indifferent, insufficient, useless and not God. We will only ever end up despising this God for when the reality hits home that neither He nor us are good enough to save we end up with no God at all.
The reality is that we have got nothing to do with the means of our salvation. We did nothing, we could do nothing, we would have done nothing except for His fully sufficient, complete and unending grace. Without grace you don’t have God, instead you have a idol. Without grace you have you, the worst salvation plan possible.
‘It seems that all my bridges have been burned
But you say ‘That’s exactly how this grace thing works’
It’s not the long walk home that will change this heart
But the welcome I receive with every start’
Mumford & Sons - Roll Away Your Stone
Tags: Grace
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Caption: Jesus in the boot
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