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The Gift of Grace

Giving Grace

Some people are very good at forgiving and lavishing grace on those around them. Some people understand that God has shown them grace, and therefore, they need to show it to others. Some people live their lives in ways that very clearly show the mercy that is God's love.

Unfortunately, I am not some people.

I have not mastered the whole grace thing yet. I am all about justice (i.e. giving people what they deserve, especially when I think that what people deserve is for me to judge them). In college, I was bored to death with Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics until I came to the end of book four which said, "Now, however, let us discuss justice." Yes, let's! I happily agreed.

When I take personality tests and come across questions that asks if I prefer justice or mercy, I pause because I want to put "mercy." I want to be softhearted and kind and full of gooey mercy. But I end up tipping the scale toward justice. For whatever reason, I feel that people need to deal with the consequences of their actions. I am always baffled by people who turn in a poorly-done assignment and still expect a good grade. I just don't get it when people who waste their money are mad when their parents won't give them a loan.

In my book, if you break a rule, you better be prepared to deal with the punishment.

Now, I realize that it is pretty ridiculous for me to be all about justice instead of mercy, especially since most of the people I interact with are probably experts at showing me grace. (Tip to all new acquaintances: You are encouraged to immediately enroll in the "Guide to Being Patient with Denise" class that is taught weekly by my longtime friends.) I am continually given grace, and yet I sometimes have a problem sharing it with others. I'm stingy, at least in part, because it is easy for me to separate ideas from people. I see the situation and forget that real human beings are involved — people who make mistakes, have regrets, let their sinful nature get the better of them. And I forget that I am one of these same people.

But I'm not just to show grace to others because it's a nice thing to do. I should be extravagant with mercy because it's part of God's character.

Sorry, No Flannelgraph

Just so we're all caught up on the history of biblical grace, it's time for our Sunday School lesson about God's grace in action!

1. God told Adam and Eve not to sin.
2. Adam and Eve went ahead and sinned anyway.
3. Instead of wiping them out and starting creation over, God showed them grace.
4. God promised Abraham that He would bless the world as long as Abraham and his people would behave.
5. They did not behave.
6. God kept His promise anyway, sending Jesus to pay for the sins of everyone who ever lived.

Now, our review causes me to have to admit one thing: Grace soaks into every pore of God's story. And this isn't any kind of weaksauce grace. This is tear-jerking grace. It is God's patience and forgiveness and goodness everywhere. Sometimes we mistakenly think that God's mercy didn't begin until Jesus showed up in the New Testament. But the fact that He kept His promise to Abraham in spite of the failure of the Israelites is evidence of the grace that has always been and will always be a part of God's character.

So if grace is a significant part of God's character, why do so many of us become complacent with it? I think it's maybe because many of us have been raised our whole lives in the knowledge of God's mercy. We've known about grace for so long that it feels like old news. Yes, we know that God has shown us mercy, that He saved us by grace through faith, that we cannot earn anything. We are aware that we rest in grace, but that head knowledge doesn't seem to easily translate to the way we treat others. God's grace is something we know, but we've lost our awe of it and the urgency to show it to others.

What is Grace?

Someone in the Coffee Shop Forum recently asked for a definition of grace — is it a gift, a tool, a transformation of our personalities? I think that for those of us who are fallen human beings (yes, that includes you), grace is all of those things.

It is a gift that we've been given, and it is a gift we should extend to others. It is a tool for dealing with our own hearts and for interacting with those around us. In my case, it often involves transforming my personality, a willingness to let God's spirit come in and chip away at my sense of what I think people deserve.

Grace is an interesting concept because, when it comes to God, it is a gift He offers to all.¹ But when it comes to us, grace is something that we tend to get very choosy about. It is something we feel we have the prerogative to bestow or withhold based on how we have been treated.

Losing Our Balance

I think that I have such a difficult time with grace because I'm not sure what the balance is. Judging from some of our conversations in the forum, I would guess that many of us struggle with this issue. We come into discussions with our parents, friends, neighbors and fellow forum posters thinking that we have the right answer to certain issues. It is clear to us that since we have the "correct, biblical answer" we don't need to show grace. It's clear-cut, there is no give. The problem is that the person you are arguing with thinks that they have the right answer, so they don't need to show grace either.

But this is not the example we received from Christ. As Paul puts it in one of his letters, Christ was, by nature, God, but humbled Himself and became a man.² Although He definitely had all of the theologically sound answers, He showed grace and mercy to all those He came in contact with. In fact, He reserved his harshest words for those who thought they had all the right answers but weren't very good at being merciful to others.

And where Jesus' model becomes even more difficult to follow is when we realize that we have to show grace to people who are unwilling to give it to us. If you're in an argument with someone who has bashed you and degraded you with their words, grace means that you continue to speak gently to them — even though they don't deserve it. The true definition of grace is in effect when we show kindness to those who are rude and stubborn and undeserving. That's what's been given to us, and if we're trying to walk as Jesus did, it's what we must show to others.

What We Don't Deserve

C O F F E E  S H O P

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What are some ways you show grace to others?

Join the discussion!

In the end, I need to work on giving grace because it's part of God's character. There is a balance between justice and mercy, of course. But more often than we would like, it's not our job to decide who receives justice. Instead, God has continually asked us to forgive, to speak gently, to make every effort to be united. By definition, grace is something extended to those who don't deserve it. And this sometimes goes against my sense of justice. But luckily for all of us, God often shows us mercy instead of giving us what we deserve.

This is why I'm trying to be more like "some people." As a Christ-follower, I have no excuse to do any less.