This week's Growing in Grace program is a spin off of last week's program, and is again inspired in part by another blog post from Steve McVey, Who Accepted Whom? It's common for people to read the Bible and interpret what they read in a self-focused way, putting the responsibility on themselves to find God, to accept God, to come back to God, to perform for God, etc, when in reality God is the one who has reached out to us and performed all the work necessary for us to have a free, loving, intimate relationship with Him.
Kap and I talk about how we need to rid ourselves of an Old Covenant mentality and look at the Bible in light of God's high view of us as His treasured children, and His unconditional acceptance of us and love for us. He has placed us in Christ and He has made us alive together with Him. He has made peace with us. He has accepted us!
Despite the prodigal son's low view of himself, the father ran to him and accepted him with open arms, and paid no attention to what the son thought he might be able to do to gain a small measure of acceptance from his father. He threw a party for him!
We can forget any notion of "our part" in any of the salvation plan and in any part of the living out of this life in Christ. God has not left it up to us to make any of this happen! As if!!! He has simply asked us to believe. Through faith, we are branches on a vine, and we have no life in and of ourselves, but yet being connected to the vine we are privileged by God's grace to partake in the fullness of life in the Vine!
"...to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved" (Eph 1:6)
The word translated as accepted is Charitoo, meaning "to grace" or "indue with special honor."
In Christ God has fully accepted you. He has graced you. He has "honored you with blessings," as another definition says.
A few sentences earlier Paul says that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ! He says that God chose us (we didn't choose Him). Paul then goes on to say that in Christ we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace, which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence!
You are blessed with a grace that abounds toward you! It's not just sprinkled here and there. Grace encompasses your entire life!
The other day I mentioned one of my all-time favorite TV shows, The Pretender. It aired in the late 90's. In recent years I've really been enjoying a USA Network program: Monk (along with another USA program called Psych). They're both well-written and well-acted shows, with comedy and drama mixed into both.
Adrian Monk is a detective who "developed an extreme case of obsessive-compulsive disorder" after the tragic death of his wife, Trudy. Monk is "consumed by peculiar obsessions and wracked with hundreds of phobias," and it makes for some great comedy as he drives people crazy, while at the same time solving cases like no one else can.
In last Friday's episode, Monk finds himself being surprisingly befriended by an older woman. She sort of embraces him like a mother, and she's able to help him get past some of his quirks as she loves him unconditionally and encourages him to do such things as cross a road while the sign says "Don't Walk," eat mixed vegetables, rearrange the furniture in his apartment, and do a few other things that his obsessive-compulsiveness normally doesn't allow him to do.
Early on in the episode, Mr. Monk comments to his assistant, Natalie, that when people embrace him or act nicely towards him, there's always a catch. They want something from him. Well, during the course of this episode, Monk ends up suspecting that his new friend's neighbor is the murderer in a case he is trying to solve. But yet the man has an alibi: Monk's new friend says she saw the man at home, playing his drums, at the time the murder happened. But Monk begins putting the clues of the case together, and he comes to the conclusion that this woman is actually the suspect's mother - not just his neighbor - and that she had lied to the police about the man's alibi.
Monk goes through his whole "Here's what happened" scenario that he does near the end of every program. He lays out his accusations toward the woman, as she stands there in puzzlement, wondering where all of these accusations are coming from. But Monk feels so very deceived, and he repeats his claim that there's "always a catch" when someone loves him unconditionally. He says the woman was only using him to cover up for her son. Now, usually when Monk comes to this "Here's what happened" revelation, he's right on target. However, in this case it turns out that the murder suspect's real mother posts bail for him. This woman who had befriended Monk was telling the truth all along, and had truly been loving him and accepting him as he was, with no "catch." Monk's suspicions about her had been wrong.
Do you have any "suspicions" about God? Do you think that in the midst of all this talk about His "unconditional love" there must be a catch? Sure, He does some nice things, but really He's not who people say He is. There's no way He can truly accept you as you are, and interact with you as His beloved child, right? He wants something from you. He's got ulterior motives. Sure, He's helped you to get over some of your fears and phobias, but really He's out to get you and deceive you. His love isn't really unconditional.
It seems to me that many people that I've come across in the church "talk the talk" about God's unconditional love, but yet they live in fear of Him, or they live as if there's got to be some "catch." They've got to perform up to a certain standard for Him. They end up putting all these conditions on God's unconditional love! But with God, there are no strings attached. He loves you and accepts you as you are. You don't need to try and figure out what the catch is, because there is no catch!
I've embedded a video here by the group Building 429. I like the group, but I admit that I'm actually posting this because of the lyrics in this particular song that I don't like. It's not my intention at all to put down the writers or performers of the song. My purpose here is to make a point about how some well-meaning teachings in the church - even teachings that include some grace in it (the song speaks of grace) - can actually represent a deficient version of the gospel that keeps Christians from understanding and walking in the fullness of Christ's life and God's grace. Please - again - I'm not trying to put anyone down here. This popular song (on Christian radio) is simply useful to me in illustrating a point.
The chorus of the song goes:
All I really want to do is to fall into The emptiness that is The space in between us To break this division All I really want to do is to fall into The emptiness that is The space in between us Erase it and bring us together again
Why would I say that words like these represent a deficient gospel? Well, let me ask you, what space is there - really - between you and God? What division? What emptiness? Are you really apart from God and need to be brought back together with Him again? Is that what the New Covenant scriptures really tell us about ourselves?
Ephesians 2:13 says that we have been brought near to God by the blood of Christ. Hebrews 10:19-23 says that it's by His blood that we have boldness to "enter the Most Holy Place" and that we can experientially "draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith." 1 Corinthians 6:17 says that we have been made one spirit with Him.
The gospel - the good news - is that we have become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus! (Romans 1:16-17, 2 Cor 5:21). Were we made righteous by our own good works? Were we brought near to God by our own works? Of course not! Therefore, if we sin, can those works make us unrighteous again, or keep us away from God? Of course not! It's all by the blood of Jesus, and not by how well or poorly we've performed. Think about it - when you've sinned, which is bigger - your sin or God's grace? Grace always wins, friends!
We sell ourselves short - our new-creation spirits - when we think anything we do separates us from God. Worse than that, we sell God's very gospel itself short. Is His gospel what He says it is, or isn't it!
There is a very important reason why I always want to always help people become established in all of this. If we, as Christians who have been brought near to God by the blood of Jesus, think there's a space or a gulf or a gap in between us and God, then we'll live as if there's a space or a gulf or a gap in between us and God. Instead of living as who we truly are - accepted in the Beloved (Eph 1:6), having peace with God (Rom 5:1) - we'll live as if we're separated from Him and as if He's angry with us or is waiting for US to do something to get ourselves "right with Him" - when it was never up to us in the first place (!), and, more importantly, when we never lost our right standing and our union with Him anyway!
Grace, the blood of Jesus, the NEW covenant, the NEW life we received in Christ - all of this changed EVERYTHING! There's no more separation from God. There's no more walking on eggshells, trying to keep ourselves in right standing with God. There's no more fear of Him hiding His face from us. His grace has accomplished everything that is needed. As we grow in our understanding of who we truly are in Him by grace alone through faith, we can trust more and more that God's grace and our daily renewing of our minds to all the wonderful truth of the Good News of the New Covenant - will continuously be at work in us, keeping us securely in Him.
Don't hope for what you already have! And don't wish for some space to be filled when there's no space there in the first place!
