Sadly for many of us there seems to be a gap right in the middle of how the Gospel affects our lives. Sure many of us have had all sorts of tough things to go through in our lives, but by and large they are just the normal sorts of things that you would expect in a fallen and broken world, affected to the core by sin. By and large we are not people who are alienated or friendless; we are not impoverished or homeless. In general we have a bunch of less than perfect friends, but friends nevertheless, we have adequate housing, food and resources but still we seem to carry around a weight on our shoulders.

And the reality is for many of us that we fail to connect with our faith on a day to day level; there is a big hole in the middle of our gospel if you like. We understand what it is to be saved by grace, but we don’t really get what it is to live by grace. We Understand life after death, but we desperately need to understand and connect with grace in our life before death and see the beauty in a life of grace.

So here are some things to remember about grace and how it affects our lives now.

1)       Grace destroys your sense of self worth, but it gives you a security of identity that you never had. We have not only been forgiven, but we have been empowered; we are freed from looking inward for our own identity and now have a potential far greater than just our own doing because our potential now is as great as the grace of Christ. No more seeking identity in possessions or performance but our identity is now in a source that can actually deliver the goods.

2)       Grace exposes your sin, but it covers your failure. No longer do we have to work to excuse, deny, rationalize, or minimize our sin. No longer do we have to exercise our inner lawyer when someone points out a wrong. Because of the cross of Jesus, we can admit our weakness and failure before a holy God and be utterly unafraid. And if a holy God accepts us as we are, why would we fear the opinion of others? No more excuses, no more need to defend ourselves.

3)       Grace makes you face your weakness, but blesses you with power beyond your wildest dreams (Eph 3:20-21);. Grace does require you to admit how weak you are, but it doesn't leave you there. The cross not only dealt with the guilt of sin, but with the inability of sin as well. In this broken world of regular difficulty and constant temptation, we can feel weak and unprepared, and so live more out of fear and avoidance than with hope and courage.

4)       Grace will take control out of your hands, but it blesses you with the care of One whose plan is unshakable and perfect in every way. We seem to have some kind of distant belief in the sovereignty of God, but it is often almost completely separate from our everyday experience. We live as though we have no idea that Jesus is ruling over all things for his sake (Ephesians 1:20-23). So we find ourselves constantly dealing with the frustration of trying to control people and things which we have little power to control. We spend way too much time calculating the "what ifs" and regretting the "if onlys." We seem as if we don’t know that our security and rest are not to be found in our ability to predict the future and control the present, but in the faithful love and expansive wisdom of his sovereign Savoir, Jesus, so his living was always more anxious than restful.

You see, we don’t need more grace. No, we needed to understand and live in light of the grace we have already been given. We can be grace amnesiacs and live as if we are poor, when grace had made us exotically rich. We live as if we are weak, when grace has made us strong. We live as though life has no plan, when, in fact, we’ve been included in the unalterable plans of the God of redeeming grace.

Blessings

Martyn