grace

Maybe there’s more to the story.

“Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating.  By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace to which others are just as entitled as we are.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Have you ever judged someone just by the way they look? Or how they worship? Or how they vote? Have you ever assumed motives behind what someone said and later found they meant it in an entirely different way? It’s so easy to label people or to misinterpret a comment, text, or post.

We too often assume we know more than we do about another person’s beliefs, motives, or actions. Maybe that’s why the Bible has many cautions about being quick to judge. Think of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1. She desperately wanted children, but she and her husband had been unable to conceive. She was despondent and out of options. So, she went to the tabernacle to talk to God. She wept and prayed quietly – her lips were moving, but no sound came out.

Eli, the priest, saw this and was immediately filled with disgust. He assumed she had been at the festival and was drunk – in this holy place. So he confronted her, and she responded, “No, my lord, I am a woman troubled in spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord.” Eli quickly saw she was telling the truth and reversed his judgment, offering her a blessing instead of a rebuke.

Judging is so easy to do! Let’s be wary of it by committing to these attitudes instead:

  • Assume the best motives unless or until proven otherwise.
  • Don’t be too easily offended.
  • Sometimes just let it go.
  • Love and be loved.

Life will be better. God will be pleased.

“Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”- John 7:24

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I don’t want to bother God about this.

“It is but a small thing for Me, thy God, to help thee.” – Charles Spurgeon

Do you ever hesitate to pray about something because it’s just too little a thing to bother him about? Or too big to ask for? Or because you don’t deserve his help? I think we’ve all been there.

Then I read this (below). It was as if a switch was flipped, and I had an entirely different perspective of what God thinks of my human requests. This is from Charles Spurgeon. He lived a long time ago, so you’ll have to put up with some “thee’s” and “thou’s”, but take a deep breath and read what he sees as God’s response when we ask for help:

Consider what I have done already. What! Not help thee?

Why, I bought thee with my blood. What! Not help thee? I have died for thee, and if I have done the greater, will I not do the less?

Help thee! It is the least thing I will ever do for thee. I have done more and will do more.

Before the world began, I chose thee . . . I laid aside my glory and became a man for thee; I gave my life for thee; and if I did all this, I will surely help thee now.”

Wow, right? What we think is too much to ask of God is a small thing to him. If he loved us enough to save us, won’t he love us enough to listen to every prayer, no matter how big or small? Won’t he love us enough to give the answer to our prayers that will ultimately be the best thing for us? Yes.

So, let’s ask!

“The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.” – Psalm 145:18

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Need grace?

“Grace is love that cares and stoops and rescues.” – John Stott

I’ve heard it said the Old Testament is about law and the New Testament is about grace. Funny, though, but the more I read the Old Testament, the more I see grace there, too. Example:

After King Hezekiah restored the temple (2 Chronicles 30), he called the people to come to celebrate Passover. It wasn’t in the right month. Would God allow that? There were those who had not properly consecrated themselves. What to do? God had struck people dead for what seemed like lesser offenses than these.

Hezekiah prayed, asking God to accept the people as they were – sinful, unsure, but willing to come back to him. God heard and answered that prayer, and a great celebration of Passover occurred with much repentance and rejoicing. God, in his amazing grace, opened the door to the undeserving, the unwashed, and the wayward. Maybe he saw their hearts. Maybe he just wanted them back. But it was pure grace.

This may be a foreshadowing of the grace that would come in Jesus – grace that would allow us to be made clean enough to approach him without ceremonial washings and ritual – just to come as we are with hearts full of repentance, offering him ourselves and our gifts, yielding to his will for our lives.

It also reminds me that we need to extend grace to others. We receive it freely from God’s hand. Why, then, would we withhold forgiveness or second chances or new starts to anyone around us? Knowing God, following Jesus – it’s all about grace!

“He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,” – 2 Timothy 1:9

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A Blessing for You

“However many blessings we expect from God, his infinite liberality will always exceed all our wishes and our thoughts.” – John Calvin

Need a blessing? Accept this prayer, written by a friend of mine, as a gift meant especially for you:

“Abba Father bless all your faithful children and keep them; make your face shine on them and be gracious to them; turn your face toward them and give them your peace.

May each of them always be aware of your presence, Lord, in their lives, leading, guiding and caring for them with your amazing love, grace, and mercy. May they always remember that greater is the one who is in them than the one who is in the world. Remind them that they are more than conquerors, that they are sons and daughters of the most high God, and that before the beginning of time, you, Lord, set in place plans to prosper them and not harm them, to give each of them hope and a future.

Lord, watch over them and their families and keep them from the temptations of the enemy. Lord, continue to challenge them, strengthening their faith and growing the fruit of the Spirit within them to overflowing, enabling each of them to show the love you have for them to all who cross their paths.

Father, fill them with your peace from the tops of their heads, to the ends of their fingers, to the bottom of their feet. May every step they take be filled with your blessing, may every challenge be filled with your mercy, and may every night be filled with your peaceful, restful, regenerating sleep. In the name of our savior Jesus Christ – Amen!”

I hope you can receive these words as promises of God. Now, let us go and bless someone else!

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,” – Ephesians 1:3

*Thank you, Jane Sironen!

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But, I don’t understand.

“You need not cry very loud; he is nearer to us than we think.” – Brother Lawrence

Meet our cat, Abi. She likes everything to always be the same. She likes her Amazon box. She loves to be brushed.

She does not love being put in her carrier to ride in the car. Scary. Might end up at the vet. And her cries are like prayers asking us to set her free.

If you have a pet, you can relate, right? Have you ever thought that our relationship to our pets might be somewhat parallel God’s relationship to us? He knows what we like, but there are times he put us through something equivalent to getting in the carrier to go to the vet. We don’t understand how what he’s doing is for our good. For us it’s just scary and uncomfortable, so we cry out to him in prayer.

Can you imagine how infinitely more God loves us than we love our pets? He faithfully walks with us as we suffer, but his love is too great to give us the relief we pray for. Relief won’t come until he has accomplished his purposes for us and maybe for those around us.

We cannot understand that kind of love from a human perspective. We can only find glimpses as we ourselves cause necessary pain to someone we love even though they can’t understand why.

Know this: God loves us infinitely. He’s always working for our good. And he walks with us through the struggles.

Sense his presence. Trust his love. Something good is happening even when we can’t see it.

“And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” – 1 Peter 5:10

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Bonds of Love

“Trusting God’s grace means trusting God’s love for us rather than our love for God.” – Peter Kreeft

Do you ever miss God? Do you sometimes feel like he is far away and you want him back? I feel that way sometimes when it seems I don’t have time to pray except for quick “help me” prayers or short “thank you” prayers. I feel that way sometimes when I haven’t spent quality time in the Bible for days – maybe when I am traveling or sick. I just start to miss him. That happened to me recently.

I found myself one morning praying something like this: I feel like I’m not paying enough attention to you, Lord. I don’t mean to do that. But we are so busy, and I am so tired.

God could have told me I was letting him down and really needed to get my act together. But he didn’t. Instead, he responded with something like this: I know. But because you reach out to me so consistently in calmer times, these times when you can’t stay in touch do not separate us. We have bonds of love. I reach out to you when you can’t reach out to me. I’ll never leave you. I am always close.

How do you think I felt after that message? Amazed. Assured. Comforted. At peace.

We worship a great and loving God. He never lets go of us. Knowing that gives great comfort in our times of stress. Knowing him this way is exactly what makes us miss him and draws us back into communion with him as soon as the whirlwind stops.

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” – Lamentations 3:22-23

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Grace: Not Just a Little, but a Lot

“A man may have too much money, or too much honour, but he cannot have too much grace . . . Thou needest much; seek much, and have much.” – C. H. Spurgeon

God is overflowingly generous. In fact, in The Message, John 1:16 reads this way, “We all live off his generous abundance, gift after gift after gift.” We cannot count the number of gifts God gives us – and they keep coming.

John tells us “He gives the Spirit without measure” (John 3:34). He doesn’t parcel out a little bit of the Spirit. He gives all of him to all of us who ask (Luke 11:13).

All of this is about grace. Grace is God showing his favor toward us – just because he wants to and can, not because we are worthy of it. In fact, he shows more grace when we are less worthy: Paul found God’s grace was perfected when he was weakest (2 Corinthians 12:9). James tells us God gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). When we can’t do something, God can. When we recognize our need, he intervenes with grace.

And not just a little grace. We read about the early Christians meeting together daily, taking care of each other’s needs, and telling others about the resurrection. Then we read, ” . . . and great grace was upon them all.” Not just grace, but great grace.

Do we need it? Yes! Do we recognize it when it comes? Sometimes. Let’s be on the lookout for God’s generous grace in our lives today. He loves it when we notice.

“But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you.” – 1 Peter 5:10