Unforced Rhythms of Grace

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” 

- Jesus, (Matthew 11:28-30, MSG)

God So Loved The World; Not Just The Nice Christians

The message of Grace, set me free from the ugly yoke of legalism. Unless you (have been awakened to the fact that you) have been mauled by legalism, you wouldn't know the severity of how legalism cripples one's mind. 

But, that does not mean I am a blinded member of the "grace" camp. I run from camps (mindsets), for they have the notoriety of being tunnel-visioned and rigid. The underlying mantra of a rigid mindset, whether it's verbalized or not, is, "We have arrived! We know it all!" Discerning minds can smell that claustrophobic structure from a mile away. 

I was stunned to hear a statement made by a very prominent and an internationally known grace preacher (whose name I will not mention), recently. He said, "sometimes, wars are needed" - referring to the fight against ISIS. 

I can understand if those words were from the U.S. Secretary of State. But from a messenger of grace?! 

My first thought was, "so this so-called "grace" is only for those who are in the club? No, that's not authentic love!" 

His rhetoric is cute, if you want to appease the warmongers; but it does not rhyme with "turn the other cheek", or "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do".

Please Spare Me Your Grace Message And Your God Is Love Message, If...

"Please spare me your grace message and your god is love message, if you still believe billions will burn for eternity, for not believing like you."

- Don Griffin

PS: Oh, and by the way, I am not at all, against the message of grace and unconditional love. The point of sharing this quote is that, it is hilarious when we put limits to grace and love.   

Clanging Cymbals...

“See the light in others, and treat them as if that is all you see.” - Wayne Dyer 

This thought that I came across today, was a good reminder for me. 

Focusing on darkness, soils one's mind. Unchecked, it morphs into another manifestation of a "right-er/better-er than thou" mentality. 

Thanks, but no thanks. 

It's no news that religion has always put people in bondage, under the banner of God. But fighting negativity with negativity has never yielded freedom for anyone. 

Rocked by the revelation of grace, the German priest Martin Luther broke out of the Catholic system (this, by the way, triggered the Protestant movement, which is now splintered into thousands of denominations). But since he was primarily driven by dogma and his rightness, rather than love, he was known for his deep anti-Semitism. 

So, the ultimate goal is not about having a "correct" theology (Christianity has plenty of versions of what "correct" is and isn't). It is, and has always been, love. Without love (who God is), we are merely clanging cymbals, whether we are proficient Bible thumpers, or “deep” contemplatives.

One Of The Criticisms That Grace Faces...

One of the criticisms leveled against the message of Grace is, that it is lax on "sin". The assumption is, "it's all Grace now, so you can do whatever you want, without any consequences." 

Not one Grace preacher I know of, says that. 

Regardless of whether anyone says that or not, I think, this criticism stems from the belief that people can be controlled by the Law; sadly, without realizing the fact that the Law actually empowers one to sin (see 1 Cor 15:56). 

A lifestyle of destruction destroys us, but it does not affect God's love for us. There isn't a big enough boulder that can separate us from His love for us (see Rom 8:38-39). 

Despite what we feel about the man, God unconditionally loves Ariel Castro, the man who, for a decade, imprisoned and used three young women as sex slaves, in his basement. While God's love is offensive to most people, it does not negate the law of sowing and reaping - which is why Castro is in a jail right now. 

God's love towards the human race has nothing to do with one's good or bad actions. He loved us from before the foundations of the world. Unlike most of us do with each other, we don't earn God's acceptance with our actions. We are already accepted and reconciled in God (see 2 Cor 5:18-19), whether we have the experiential reality of it, or not. It's a gift - it is called Grace (see Eph 2:8-9). 

Regardless, I love all the heat that the message of Grace is getting now. It simply means that nerves are being struck left and right, for the better. You can't make a good chicken curry without stirring the pot. : )

Grace nullifies...

“The gospel of grace nullifies our adulation of televangelists, charismatic superstars, and local church heroes. It obliterates the two-class citizenship theory operative in many American churches. For grace proclaims the awesome truth that all is gift. All that is good is ours, not by right, but by the sheer bounty of a gracious God.” 

- Brennan Manning

Everyone’s a Biblical Literalist Until You Bring Up Gluttony - by Rachel Held Evans

"In short, we like to gang up. We like to fashion weapons out of the verses that affect us the least and then “clobber” the minority with them. Or better yet, conjure up some saccharine language about speaking the truth in love before breaking out our spec-removing tweezers to help get our minds off of these uncomfortable logs in our own eyes."

Read the rest of the article here, by Rachel Held Evans.

Two Roads

by John Lynch, TrueFaced.com.

In case the video is not displayed on your browser, click here, to directly view from YouTube.

I believe this is one of the (if not, the) best messages on Grace I've ever heard.

If you have been striving hard to please God, with no apparent success in the endeavor, I urge you to watch this video.

Undeserved. Really?

"You deserve God's love. God is not being nice to you by giving you something you don't deserve, he is being a Father to you and giving you exactly what he believes you do deserve. You deserve his love, all his love, and if it's possible, even more. He wants you to have his whole being and the fullness of his love.

You're his child, and to your heavenly Father, you deserve everything he desires to give you. Not because you've earned it, but because of the DNA of who you are. His beloved child. His treasured possession. His everything. You're worthy of it all, every last drop of love, you're worthy of it. It's yours. Bless your heavenly Father's heart and receive it freely and abundantly."

I love this quote by Mick Mooney.

Saying "we didn't earn it" and "we don't deserve it" are two totally different things. 

Religion harps on the latter - saying, singing and implying in so many ways, that we are the unworthy, undeserving scum of the earth. 

We are not. We are God's masterpieces, his beloved children.

Our two children did not "earn" the clothes they are wearing, but we would deeply be hurt, if they kept telling us that they are "unworthy and don't deserve anything they have." Any loving parent knows that it does not make any sense. They do deserve everything we have for the simple reason that they are ours.

"......two thousand years of religious tradition have inculcated in us the mistaken notion that God’s love is something we earn. If we do what pleases him, he loves us; if not, he doesn’t. Giving that up isn’t easy. Moving from a performance-based religious ethic to a relationship deeply rooted in the Father’s affection is no small transition."

- Wayne Jacobsen, He Loves Me! Learning to Live in the Father's Affection

Why do we Receive and Give Grace?

Grace is about God's unconditional acceptance towards us, because all of us falls short at one time or the other. 

For example, Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

If we are honest with ourselves, none of us floats around in a bubble of love and grace all the time. 

This, therefore, puts all of us in the same boat. Grace levels the playing field.

So then, who is going to cast the first stone at whom? 

This is the mindset from which we receive and give grace.

Feelings

Religion is about what we must do. 

Grace is about what He has done. 

It is finished and we are complete in Him (Col 2:10), whether we feel it or not. 

While feelings are beautiful, they are not necessarily an accurate indicator of our identity. Right now it is 50 degrees Fahrenheit outside, and I am experiencing a comfortable 65 degrees inside. But my experience does not alter the fact that the actual temperature is 50 degrees right now.

"The entire law was based on the performance of man. The new covenant is based on the performance of one man, Christ." 

- Susan Woods Avello

Married to Jesus and Sleeping with Moses

"Preaching a "mixed" (grace & law) message is a form of spiritual adultery . . . . married to Jesus, and sleeping with Moses."

- Ted Nelson

Free From the Yoke of Slavery

by Bob George

Under the law we become hypocrites. The word comes from the Greek theatre. A hypocrite is not an imperfect person; a hypocrite is an actor, a pretender. What made the Pharisees hypocrites was not their faults: It was their pretense that they were righteous. It was teaching one thing and doing another. But that is what law will always produce: people who are always hiding their real selves, always acting, always pretending, and never being real. 

But what happens when we are set free by grace? One of the most common testimonies I hear is, "For the first time in my life, I am free to just be myself! I'm free to be me." 

The ultimate consequence of living under law is outright rebellion when you give up because of the hopelessness of ever making it. 

Time and time again, I have seen these people who have been branded as "rebels against God" or "back-slidden Christians" come out of their chairs in excitement and joy as they learn for the first time about the incredible grace, love and acceptance of God in Jesus Christ. 

In all my years as a Christian, I have never heard anyone say, "I've had it! I am sick to death of the love and grace of God. I'm sick of other Christians loving and accepting me. I'm giving up this Christian life." No I've never heard that. But I couldn't count the number of Christians I've known who have given up because of being under law, who have been broken by the crushing burden of trying to be good enough to earn God's acceptance, who have been mangled by the competition, the judging, and the demands to conform to some group's standards. "We'll accept you if you look like, walk like, talk like, and act like us." And the implication is always, "And God will, too." So what are we to do? 

Jesus Christ came to free us from the burden of the law by calling us to a life united with His. We are beloved, accepted children of God, who have been called to His "banquet table" to experience Jesus Christ living in and through us every day. Abundant life is not "pie-in-the-sky" or nebulous theory. It is real, and it is ours for the taking if we will only believe. Let's not settle for anything less. 

From: Classic Christianity. Eugene: Harvest House Publishers. ©1989.

How Grace is a "slippery slope"

Some say Grace is a "slippery slope".

It sure is.

We slide straight down to the ocean of unconditional love.

Jesus and Osama

A powerful post. And an equally powerful painting.

Check this post by Greg Boyd.

How To Train Kings

"Preaching more against sin has not made the church look like Jesus. It tends to cause sin to increase. You don't train kings to be kings by telling them what not to do, you tell them who they are and how kings act."

- Curry Blake

Who gets to throw the first stone at whom?

God loves the "sinners", just like he loves us, who sin differently than "they" do.

If we are going to live by the law, we cannot pick and choose laws. Breaking one is akin to breaking all the laws (see James 2:10).

If that's the case, who gets to throw the first stone at whom?

When the Pharisees brought a woman who was caught in the act of adultery (note that the partner was conveniently missing; but that's another topic), and when the Pharisees brought her to Jesus, with the intent of stoning her to death (which is what the Law says), Jesus did not say, "Let him who is without adultery among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” He said, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Our condemnation and finger-pointings to those who don't fit in our doctrinal boxes and our standards of righteousness will stop only when this finally sinks in. All of us are in the same boat - loved unconditionally by God.

Grace 101

If you have not yet been exposed to the message of Grace that is sweeping the body of Christ and setting many people free from religious bondages, please consider viewing/listening (video and audio links included) to this message by Steve McVey.

This is the message of Grace in less than 40 minutes.

If the video sparked your interest, and you would like to delve in, consider the books by Steve McVey (Grace Walk), Joseph Prince (Destined to Reign) and/or Andrew Wommack (Grace, The Power of the Gospel). [The list is not exhaustive by any means].