Grace
Amazing what?
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. Most of us know the tune, but we cant carry it. In other words, almost every one of us struggles in believing God’s grace for ourselves - and extending it, in turn, to others. Yet our difficulties don’t cause God to back down. He anticipates and intends that we will live out the forgiveness that Jesus won for us on the cross with one another in our relationships: “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity” (Colossians 2:13-14).
This command, when carried out, has a life-altering effect upon our connection with others. This instruction means that Grace is more than a distant theological concept. It is a daily understanding that actually creates the kind of Community that we will be a part of.
Grace is good news. As Brennan Manning puts it so well, Grace is for “the bedraggled, the beat-up, and burnt-out. It is for the sorely burdened who are still shifting the heavy suitcase from one hand to the other. It is for the wobbly and weak-kneed who know they don’t have it all together... It is for inconsistent, unsteady disciples whose cheese is falling off their cracker. It is for poor, weak, sinful men and women with hereditary faults and limited talents... It is for the bent and bruised who feel that their lives are a grave disappointment to God... (It is) for myself and anyone who has grown weary and discouraged along the Way” (Ragamuffin Gospel, p. 12).
Now that’s amazing.