So what is grace, anyways?

 

So I am here and have started this blog and it's about grace. That lends itself to the question of just what is this thing called grace anyways and why does it matter? Matter enough to spend 100 days focusing on and blogging about.

 

Well, as you see above, grace is an act of love, of kindness, of forgiveness, of favor towards another. Yet more than that, it's one that can be both unasked for and more greatly, undeserved.

As a Christian I believe that the ultimate act of grace came through Jesus Christ in dying on the cross. Came through God loving us so much that he sent his Son to die for us, conquering sin and death and the power of the devil, that we would some day be able to live in eternity with him. And he did so by no doing of our own but simply by his great love for us.

And why does that matter? Well because of eternity of course! Because of the hope that it offers this life. Because of the freedom. We no longer have to live a life trying to redeem ourselves or our wrong doings or short comings. We never have to try to "right" things with God or to earn a place in His eternal kingdom. When Christ died on that cross and rose from the grave, those things became ours. Our sanctification. Our salvation. They were wrapped up, tagged with our name and hand delivered to each one of us in the ultimate and greatest act of love.

 

So now we have this grace- this beautiful, wonderful grace - well now what?

 

The answer is that we are called to live in it and into it. To live a life free of the binding chains of sin and death and to go and tell and freely share the love of God with others. And yet part of that, is that we are also supposed to share it with ourselves. We are supposed to offer ourselves the same love and care and gentleness and grace that we have been given through Christ. Yet so many of us struggle to do that. So many of us struggle to live in to the grace that has been bestowed on us. In the freedom of it. The peace of it. The JOY of it. And that my friends. That is what this blog is all about.

 

So many of us live in the trenches. The trenches of our sins, our guilt, our shame, our imperfections. Even though we've been freed from them, we stay there and dwell there and continue to focus on them and punish ourselves for them trying to somehow redeem ourselves. And yet this is for no reason. "He is not here- He is risen!" the angel said. And the same goes for us. "Do not stay here- He is risen", friends! Do not stay in the trenches. Do not swim in self doubt or any of the things that keep us bound and shackled and from doing anything but living freely and openly and joyfully under the cross.

 

And yet as I say that- as I want to scream it- to cheerlead it to all of you, I too, too often stay in these trenches and live and act and treat myself as if I was never freed from them. I am sombered and convicted in that. And yet I am feeling like it's time to move from them. To live more wholly and freely in to the freedom I was given. I was not sent here to live a life in the trenches and neither were any of you. And so today, day 1- the crawl out begins.