Sometimes I feel like Christianity is confusing. There are so many conflicting concepts flying around that really don’t make sense. For example, it says we need to die to ourselves, but that Jesus came to give us life. We are told to be in the world, but not of the world. How can we be relevant and relatable without engaging in the lives of others a bit? All of these struggles may seem daunting until you actually find revelation in these areas.
One area that I have been praying about and trying to work out is living right but also embracing the concept of grace and forgiveness. For so many years, I lived with guilt because of things I had done. In many ways, the world is very aware of the standards of the Christian life. Purity, honesty, responsibility, and compassion are a few descriptors when it to comes to how we are “supposed” to live. But if I am going to be honest about my honesty, I hardly ever achieve perfection in any of these areas.
I know that as a human being, it is impossible to be able to consistently uphold that kind of lifestyle by myself. So what is the solution? Do we just give up? Do we try our best, knowing we will always fall short?
Introduce the concept of grace. When Jesus came to earth, he came to take the blame for us falling short and to die on our behalf. In that way, the blame is no longer on us when it comes to what we do – Jesus took it instead. I have had many responses to this concept of grace: awe, denial, relief, gratefulness, and even frustration. In some ways, you could take the concept of grace and use it as a hall pass to continue living recklessly. In your sin, you could try pull out the “grace card” whenever you start feeling convicted. But I am talking from experience when I say that it is a pitiful application of the greatest gift God has given us.
Grace is not a “card to play”. It is not a token you possess. It is something that you need to internalise. In many ways, I used to treat grace as a gift card – waving it around whenever I was in debt, but never cashing it in. And not only that, I had no idea what the value of that gift card actually was.
Grace is not something you just possess. It is something that is meant to be applied. So when you are found convicted, you become more grateful that you don’t have to face the ultimate consequence of death. You claim grace over your thoughts, not allowing yourself to fall into the traps of condemnation and remorse. You use grace to get up again and charge after God even harder than before. Through the eyes of grace, you see your potential instead of your failings – the victory of Jesus rather than your own defeat. The more you use grace to identify who you are, the more you start becoming like Jesus. And that is how you live right. Apply grace to your life – don’t keep it in your back pocket or in the trophy case.
If you want to know more about how you can receive this grace, click on the link below.