Tag: Grace

The Gift that Grows

December 18 2024 — The Gift that Grows

To each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. — Ephesians 4:7 NIV

It’s Christmastime again, and you know what that means! The annual “white elephant” gift exchange. Each person has the option of choosing a wrapped present or seizing one already selected and unwrapped by someone else. As more packages are opened, stealing increasingly becomes the go-to option. “I’ll take your gift, thank you very much.” It’s a zero-sum game: one person’s gain is another person’s loss. So anticipation mounts — who will finish with the more coveted gifts, and who will be stuck with . . . let’s just say the “more memorable” ones? The two I remember most? A bullwhip and a porcelain bedpan. (I tried to market the latter as an antique, but there were no takers.)

Not all gift exchanges are “winner take all,” fortunately, and one that immediately comes to mind is grace. Grace is not “I win; you lose”; it is quite the opposite — liberated by God’s grace to me, I gratefully share the same with you. As Jesus said, “Freely you have received; freely give.”¹ Then, grace multiplies, it spreads, it bears fruit, it “keeps giving.” For grace itself “teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.”² What a relief! May we live as we ought.

Ironically, for some of us giving grace is especially difficult during the holidays. For we gather with those who know us the best and who “punch our buttons” the most, sometimes knowingly and perhaps more often not. As a bumper sticker reads: “I’ll be home for Christmas and in therapy by New Year.” So, why not live this season in grace? Why not pause to consider God’s patience with us and His forbearance toward us, and in humility and thankfulness, share the gift of grace with those who struggle against sin as much as we do. Paul exhorts us, “Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.”³

Grace can be difficult to give, for it calls us to expel our pride and become vulnerable again. But gifts await us in exchange. Maybe even the gift of joy.

Live grace. Give grace.

Father, from [Jesus’] fullness we have all received grace upon grace.⁴ Fill us with Your Spirit, that we would extend this grace to others, especially those who punch our buttons. In Christ we pray. Amen.

¹ Matthew 10:8 NIV
² Titus 2:12 NIV
³ Colossians 3:13 NLT
⁴ John 1:16 ESV

Tags A Word for Wednesday, Grace, Paul Nordman, The Gift that Grows

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He Will Lead You

“This is love for God: to keep his commands.” —1 John 5:3 NIV

A few years ago, a pastor friend said of a particular kind of sin, “I’m not so sure that’s a sin any more under the new covenant in Christ.” Aye yai yai! I was stunned. His was but one voice articulating what I perceive to be a troubling trend among believers today: the notion that Jesus’ love tolerates sin (it doesn’t) as if to make it OK (it isn’t). God’s liberating love and grace are far greater—far more empowering and transformational than this. Let’s look.

Our sin is onerous before God; it has been so since our Edenic fall. Indeed, it was our sin that put Jesus, our unblemished sacrifice, on the cross. “He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities.”¹ He did not come to make us comfortable with sin, but as Him who “takes away the sin of the world!”² Then, if we have been rescued from the penalty of our sins, are they now OK? “By no means!” exclaimed Paul, “How can we who died to sin still live in it?”³ Sin still exists, and God’s disposition toward it has not changed.

In fact, it is in the context of grace that Jesus tells us to obey God’s commands, and it is only in the power of grace that we can. Jesus taught His disciples, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”⁴ And Peter exhorts us to appropriate the grace we have received: “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.”⁵ Peter again, “[Jesus] himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.”⁶

Then does Scripture put us back under the Law, so as to earn God’s favor through our own power and grit? No, we have neither the natural strength or inclination to do so. Rather just as by grace God’s Son suffered our death, so also by grace His Spirit guides our life. For what God foretold has proved true: “I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”⁷ God’s Spirit, alive in us through faith in Christ, leads us away from sin and onto God’s ways of good and right. Jesus’ love does not tolerate sin; it overcomes its power, both in death and in life. Trust Him, and obey. He will lead you.

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.—
1 John 2:1 NIV

Father, thank You for Your unconquerable love and grace. Open my heart to know Your presence and to follow Your lead. Just for today, I lay aside my will for Yours. And tomorrow, may I do so again. In Christ I pray. Amen.

¹ Isaiah 53:5 ESV
² John 1:29 ESV
³ Romans 6:1-2 ESV
⁴ John 14:23 NIV
⁵ 1 Peter 2:16 ESV
⁶ 1 Peter 2:24 ESV
⁷ Ezekiel 36:26-27 NIV

Tags A Word for Wednesday, Grace, He Will Lead You, Paul Nordman, Tolerance

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The Glory that Awaits Us

Mercury Morris was a running back with the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the only team in NFL history to go undefeated throughout an entire season. When asked what it was like to have been part of this unequaled feat, Morris thoughtfully reflected, “I asked Buzz Aldrin once, ‘What was it like to walk on the moon?’” Pausing briefly, Morris continued, “I still don’t know. All I know is what [Aldrin] told me.” Which is to say there are some things in life we cannot understand until we experience them. Such is the case with God’s glory.

God’s gift of grace is the overflow of His nature of grace. He is full of grace and truth,¹ and in great love He lavishly pours out His merciful kindness to us undeserving people. In prodigious proportions, He showers us with His own righteousness, strength, and sufficiency, and in unmatched generosity, He saves us, redeems us, and transforms us into the image of Christ. Then consider this, also: though “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”² the “God of all grace [has] called [us] to his eternal glory in Christ.”³ Even now, we are “being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory,”⁴ and it shows, for God works through our spiritual gifts, which is “the manifestation of the Spirit,”⁵ and “the fruit of the Spirit”⁶ in our lives testifies to the divine nature of Christ in us. And in all things, God’s glory in us ultimately glorifies Him. Paul writes, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”⁷ This is truth; this is grace.

Yet a far greater glory awaits us. To the Colossians Paul wrote, “Your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”⁸ To believers in Rome, he reflected, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”⁹ And to the Corinthians, Paul marveled, “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived—the things God has prepared for those who love him.”¹⁰ So, what will it ultimately look like to fully experience God’s glory? I still don’t know. All I know is what the Bible tells me. But it’s going to be good . . .

Father, Your promises are sure. Enlighten our hearts, that we may know the hope of Your calling, the riches of the glory of Your inheritance in us, and the greatness of Your power toward us who believe.¹¹. In Christ we pray. Amen.

¹ John 1:14
² Romans 3:23
³ 1 Peter 5:10
⁴ 2 Corinthians 3:18
⁵ 1 Corinthians 12:7
⁶ Galatians 5:22-23
⁷ 2 Corinthians 4:6-7
⁸ Colossians 3:3-4
⁹ Romans 8:18
¹⁰ 1 Corinthians 2:9
¹¹ Ephesians 1:18-21

Tags A Word for Wednesday, Glory, Grace, Grace Series, Paul Nordman, The Glory that Awaits Us