On Grace

It has taken me 22 years of growing up in the Church to become a Christian. I spent most of my life growing up trying to earn my way into a position to receive Grace. I grasped the concept that I am a sinner in need of a Savior early on, but to me it translated into a sort of tally mark system: my sin was wiped away upon "asking Jesus into my heart," but all the sin after that was tallied against me. The saving power of Christ's sacrifice was sufficient to cover my sins, but that really only counted for unintentional sins. If I wanted forgiveness for the tally of sins I willfully committed I had to prove by good intentions and irreproachable behavior that I was not only sorry for my sins but striving the best I could to do better in the present and the future. If I could prove beyond reasonable doubt that I was trying to do better, I might just earn my way into a position to be forgiven. But I couldn't ever really know if I was doing enough to prove myself, not until the Day of Judgment. Assurance of Salvation? What's that?

I hope that this is as obviously wrong to you as it is to me now. But growing up it seemed to me to be the only way to reconcile the free Grace of God with His Righteousness. To me, I was showing proper reverence and fear for the Almighty Judge of the Universe. I wanted to love God, but I wanted to make sure that I was doing it right, not cheapening Grace, and properly understanding the faith I chose to follow. In so doing I undervalued Grace, had no concept of the core of what it means to be after God's own heart, and did everything wrong. Thank God that He didn't leave this sinner alone in a prison of my own misunderstanding.

There is no tally system. There is no 'enough.' There is no proving. Grace cannot be earned. The more I tried to earn it, the more I proved that I had no concept of it. There is no gift-exchange for Grace, for there is nothing that I can offer in return of equal or greater value. There is not even me, simple-minded, disobedient, self-righteous ragamuffin that I am, because everything I am and will ever be comes from God. There is Grace, and there is the God of the Universe reconciling us to Himself.

I was reading through old emails (that's a normal thing to do, right?) and came across something I sent to a friend over the summer. Upon reflection, I think this is the beginning of my waking up to Grace. It's akin to the hazy moments when you try to open your eyes in a dream and see the bedroom around you. You're not quite awake, but the reality around you begins to shape your dreams.

"I am just now learning to live in freedom toward who I am. I am full of inconsistencies and skewed perspectives and weird quirks that embarrass me and fears that drive me and baggage that weighs me down. But I want to love God. I am not overwhelmed by my humanness because I believe that God is bigger than my humanness, and big enough in fact to not only tolerate my humanness but USE my messy quirky fearful angsty cussing humanness. God doesn't call us into an awareness of Himself to love Him so that He can tolerate us in our messiness for the rest of our earthly lives, waiting it out for us to die so He can rescue our spirits up to eternal delight. He calls us into an awareness of Himself because He loves us. As we are, He loves us. He doesn't love us for who we will eventually be, He loves us for who we are. Now. Before. Always."

There is no tally system. Grace is not an 'elementary doctrine' of Christianity, it is what all other theology, orthodoxy, orthopraxy, doctrine, and dogma points to and centers on. The Gospel is not something that we as Christians ever grow out of, it is something we continually grow toward. We fool ourselves if we think that our theological studies can ever bring us to a greater revelation than Grace.

Hallelujah, my salvation is not conditional on my worthiness. Hallelujah, my salvation is not the sum total of God's plan for me. Hallelujah, His Grace is enough.