Reflecting grace

From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.  John 1:16 (NRSV).

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.  1 Corinthians 3:18 (NRSV)

John 1:16 is a short verse tightly packed with meaning.  Matthew Henry's commentary explains one concept of this idea of God's fullness of grace by referring to 1 Corinthians 3:18.  We are a reflection of God's grace, and the more we stand before him, the more of His grace we will reflect.  Another analogy is that God allows the fullness of his grace to pour out over us, covering us just like a heated wax mold.  Then God pours His grace into us, just like plaster into the mold, and the end result is that we are covered and filled with grace--we  become the stuff of grace.    

The most amazing part of this whole analogy is that we all have the opportunity to become filled with His fullness.  God in Christ has so much grace that He can continuously overflow every vessel in the world, every person who has ever lived, and every person who ever will live.  That is fullness!  That is amazing grace!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Grace and testimony

"...Paul and Barnabas went into the Jewish synagogue and spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks became believers. But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. So they [Paul and Barnabas] remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who testified to the word of his [own] grace by granting signs and wonders to be done through them."  Acts 14: 2-3 (NRSV) [parenthetical clarification is mine] 

In the scripture passage above, Paul and Barnabas were in Iconium, a region, in Paul's day, which was known as Asia, and is now known as the city of Konya in Turkey.  Paul and Barnabas were preaching in a Jewish synagogue, and both Jews and Greeks became believers.  We must realize how huge of a miracle this was.  Both Jews and Greeks (we can also substitute Gentiles or non-Jews for Greeks) became believers in Christ!

   

Now, as the scripture above states, Paul and Barnabas are telling Jews and everyone else about Jesus, and they all are becoming believers.  However, there was also opposition to God's word, so Paul and Barnabas stayed and spoke boldly for the Lord.  And right here is where grace steps in.   The scripture says that God testified to the word of His own grace.  God used Paul and Barnabas as a mouthpiece so that He could testify to grace. God testifying through humans!  Imagine this! 

As a way of illustrating this point, let us imagine that we are in a special service at church and listening to individual members of the congregation stand up and talk about the miracles that God has done in his or her life. However, as each member stands up to testify, the congregation hears a booming voice coming from the mouth of each testifier, a voice that proclaims that in spite of sin, God loves us so much that He forgives and forgets our sins and changes us into a person who is worthy of His love. This is truly what our testimony is--God speaking through our lives. 

As we look at each Christian in our lives, can we hear God's testimony through them?  If we look at their faults and sins, we cannot.  But, if we ask God to speak His testimony to us through them, we will be able to see the miracle that God works in each of our lives.  This should be each of our prayers:  Testify your grace through me.  Let my life be Your miraculous testimony.

Power in God's glory

“May you be strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience." Colossians 1:11

The footnote to verse 11 in the Harper Collins NRSV Study Bible tells us that the literal Greek translation of  "glorious power" is "the power of his glory." We could read the above verse as "May you be strong with all the strength that comes from the power of his glory." The idea of power in God’s glory can also be found in the following scriptures: Exodus 24:16, 40:34; Psalms 19:1, and Isaiah 6:3, 40:5. These scriptures speak of God's glory as wondrous, awesome, and mighty.

If we imagine a king who has glorious power, we think of a king who conquers his enemies, brings peace to his kingdom and the kingdom becomes prosperous. The king is powerful, and his prosperity brings glory to the kingdom.  That is glorious power.

Now, let us imagine a king who has power in glory. This king is so glorious that he does not have to conquer his enemies. His enemies want to become a part of his kingdom and stand in the presence of his glory. This king is so glorious that he wants to share his wealth with all inhabitants of his kingdom. There is unending power in this kind of glory. This wonderful power is called grace.   

Grace and memory

Ask rain from the Lord in the season of the spring rain, from the Lord who makes the storm clouds, who gives showers of rain to you, the vegetation in the field to everyone. For the teraphim utter nonsense, and the diviners see lies; the dreamers tell false dreams, and give empty consolation. Therefore, the people wander like sheep; they suffer for lack of a shepherd. Zechariah 10: 1-2 NRSV


The name Zechariah means the Lord remembers. This concept seems very simple at first, but if we think about it, it is actually quite profound. Daniel Schacter wrote a book titled The Seven Sins of Memory. One of the "sins" of memory is absent-mindedness. When we are distracted, our attention is drawn away from the situation at hand, and the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings of the situation are not recorded in the short-term memory. For example, we are frying bacon and the phone rings with an urgent message that our loved one has been taken to the hospital. In our urgency to get to the hospital, we rush out the door and absent-mindedly leave the bacon frying on the stove. The Lord is never distracted. He can manage perfectly, all at the same time, the need of each and every molecule in the entire expanding universe, without ever forgetting one iota of need.


With the idea of the Lord's phenomenal memory in our own minds, let us look at the scripture for today. It encourages us to ask the Lord for rain in the season of rain. In other words, we should ask the Lord for rain and expect to receive it when we are supposed to receive it. God wants us to ask for blessings and gifts, but because He is not an absent-minded God who drops everything as each request is presented to Him; He is able to deliver blessings in perfect timing. Our poor distracted memory forgets that God wants us to ask for blessings and to expect Him to deliver the blessings we request. We think that when God does not give us the blessing we want when we want them, we are distracted and forget that He is the good God who is full of grace towards us. We forget that He wants to bless us! The scripture above also reminds us that the other gods, (the teraphim), the diviners, and false prophets are distractions for us. If we listen to them, we can become overwhelmed, wander without a purpose, and accomplish nothing.

Another story illustrates how we react to this distracted mentality. A woman's husband had a near fatal heart attack and was rushed to the hospital. When the woman arrived at the hospital, a nurse informed her that she should call her family, a receptionist thrust at her a thick stack of papers to complete, and the woman had to use the toilet. The woman was paralyzed, unable process everything at once. At that moment, a neighbor, who was full of grace and who saw the ambulance activity at her neighbor's home, arrived at the hospital to be with the woman. The neighbor took the stack of papers from the woman's hands and said, "This is the least important right now. First, go to the bathroom." When the woman came back from the bathroom, the neighbor, still holding the papers, said, "Now, let's find the phone and call your daughter. After we do that, we will sit down and wait for your daughter to arrive and begin to complete these papers." This is how God's grace works. It sorts out each need and meets it. We just have to be willing to allow the Lord to direct us.

Grace and a word picture

“…because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.  You have heard of this hope before in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you.  Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God.”  Colossians 1:5-8  (NRSV)

Teachers are professional communicators.  When Christ lived on earth, his predominate work was teaching.  Jesus used word pictures in the form of parables to convey his ideas to his followers.   Word pictures are a form of communication that helps people to understand complex or intangible ideas.

The word "word" has a complex meaning.  "Word" can means the vocalization of sounds that form a unit of meaning, but "word" also represents the idea of complete understanding and communication. The word of God means all of the ways that God communicates to us to help us understand Him, such as through the printed word, through prophets, through Christ, and through the Holy Spirit.  We can experience God's word with our eyes, feel it in our hearts, and experience it through the touch and care of our brethren. 

 

In the passage from Colossians that is quoted above, Paul uses a word picture (a metaphor) of the "word" bearing fruit to help us understand an intangible concept--hope.  We hope for something better than this life, and Jesus, the word of God, communicates to us just that.  Grace gives us hope for a future life in a perfect heaven with Christ.

Grace for all

On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will. Acts 15:11 (NRSV)

The above scripture is the concluding statement of Peter as he addressed an assembly of apostles and elders of the early church. Would it be possible to have a more God fearing esteemed group of men? And what were they discussing? Circumcision. They were discussing the law that distinguished Israel from the Gentiles. It was difficult for the early Christians, who were Jews and had drawn close to God through the Jewish law, to give up the law. In essence, they thought that since Jesus observed the law and the law had helped them to discover Christ and be saved, then the Gentiles should also discover Christ and be saved by observing the law.

Peter told the assembly of apostles that God spoke to the Gentiles, just as He had spoken to the Jews. And Peter reminded them that it is through grace that we all discover Christ and are saved.

Modern Christians still are caught in these sorts of discussions. We seem to have a need to be able to distinguish if other people are Christians or not. Some people believe that the Holy Spirit cannot be discovered without speaking in tongues or having a manifestation of a spiritual experience. Some believe that a church must have a service or missions focus to be truly Christian. Some people believe that we cannot know Christ without in-depth Bible study. In truth, all of these ways can help us to draw closer to Christ, but the bottom line to this discussion is the same conclusion that Peter gave to the apostles. We will be saved by grace, just the same as everyone else will be. And what a powerful, wonderful, idea this is. Saved! by grace.

 

Grace in our universe

This graphic is from Wordpress, and I love it.  The magnitude of grace is phenomenal--it not only encompasses our hearts, and our world, it permeates the universe.  Our God is HUGE! and also minutely personal.