The gospel of grace...

I rarely write about gospel, but I felt compelled to share today.  Today, when I found out the sex of my second child.  Today, the day after the 15th anniversary of the day I found freedom from alcoholism and drug addiction.  Today, when I look at my amazing, miraculous life (especially compared to life as it was 15 years ago today).  Today, when I am in awe of the nature of God's grace.  Grace that is bestowed upon me, especially in those times when I seemingly don't deserve it. 

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast.  ~ Ephesians 2:8-9

They have been doing a series in church lately called My Life Verse.  Various leaders and members of the church have shared their life verse, or shared about the life verse of someone well known.  As a part of this, the church has challenged members to find their life verse - the verse they can live their life by.  Honestly, I have wanted to borrow all of the life verses so far!  Especially Psalm 40: 1-3:

I waited patiently for the Lord;
    he turned to me and heard my cry.
   He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
    out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
    and gave me a firm place to stand.
   He put a new song in my mouth,
    a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the Lord
    and put their trust in him.

 

But what kept coming back to my mind was Ephesians 2:8-9.  This has captured by heart since I first read it, it has been my battle cry, it is written on my heart (and inside my belly cast from Jenna), it is my experience and the truth in my life.  Because of Jesus, I have grace bestowed on me, especially in those times when I seemingly don't deserve it.  Because of my alcoholism and drug addiction, I understand deeply that I have gotten much greater from life than what I deserve.  I get it. I don't struggle with the concept or it's practical and simple meaning.

 

I am reading a book called The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning.  I wanted to share a few excerpts from the first chapter, titled "Something is Radically Wrong" (this is long, but worth the read and consideration):

 

Something is radically wrong.

 

The bending of the mind by the powers of this world has twisted the gospel of grace into religious bondage and distorted the image of God into an eternal, small-minded bookkeeper.  The Christian community resembles a Wall Street exchange of works wherein the elite are honored and the ordinary ignored.  Love is stifled, freedom shackled, and self-righteousness fastened.  The institutional church has become a wounder of healers instead rather than a healer of the wounded.

 

Put bluntly, the American church today accepts grace in theory but denies it in practice.  We say we believe that the fundamental structure of reality is grace, not work - but our lives refute our faith.  By and large, the gospel of grace is neither proclaimed, understood, nor lived.  Too many Christians are living in the house of fear and not the house of love.... (p.16)

 

A friend told me she overheard a pastor say to a child, "God loves good little boys."  As I listen to sermons with either their pointed emphasis on personal effort - no pain, no gain - I get the impression that a do-it-yourself spirituality is the American fashion.

 

Though the Scriptures insist on God's initiative in the work of salvation - that by grace we are saved, that the Tremendous Lover has taken the chase - our spirituality often starts with self, not God.  Personal responsibility has replaced personal response.  We talk about acquiring virtue as if it were a skill that can be attained, like good handwriting or a well-grooved golf swing.  We sweat through various spiritual exercises as if they are designed to produced a Christian Charles Atlas.  Though lip service is paid to the gospel of grace, many Christians live as if only personal discipline and self-denial will mold the perfect me.  The emphasis is on what I do rather than on what God is doing.  In this curious process God is a benign old spectator in the bleachers who cheers when we show up for morning quiet time.  We transfer the Horatio Alger legend of the self-made man into our relationship with God...Our eyes are not on God.  At heart we are practicing Pelagians.  We believe that we can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps - indeed, we can do it ourselves.

 

Sooner or later we are confronted with the painful truth of our inadequacy and insufficiency.  Our security is shattered and our bootstraps are cut.  Once the fervor has passed, weakness and infidelity appear.  We discover our inability to add even a single inch to our spiritual stature.  There begins a long winter of discontent that eventually flowers into gloom, pessimism, and a subtle despair - subtle because it goes unrecognized, unnoticed, and therefore unchallenged.  It takes the form of boredom, drudgery.  We are overcome by the ordinariness of life, by daily duties done over and over again.  We secretly admit that the call of Jesus is too demanding, that surrender to the Spirit is beyond our reach.  We start acting like everyone else.  Life takes on a joyless, empty quality.  We begin to resemble the leading character in Ed O'Neill's play The Great God Brown : "Why am I afraid to dance, I who love music and rhythm and grace and song and laughter? Why am I afraid to live, I who love life and the beauty of flesh and the living colors of the earth and sky and sea? Why am I afraid to love, I who love love?"

 

Something is radically wrong. (pg 16-18)

 

...

 

      "Justification by grace through faith" is the theologian's learned phrase for what Chesterton called "the furious love of God."  He is not moody or capricious; He knows no seasons of change.  He has a single relentless stance toward us; He loves us...But of course, this is almost too incredible for us to accept.  Nevertheless, the central affirmation of the Reformation stands: Through no merit of ours, but by His mercy, we have been restored to a right relationship with God through the life, death, and resurrection of His beloved Son.  This is the Good News, the gospel of grace. (pg. 21)

 

The Good News means we can stop lying to ourselves.  The sweet sound of amazing grace saves us from the necessity of self-deception.  It keeps us from denying that though Christ was victorious, the battle with lust, greed and pride still rages within us.  As a sinner who has been redeemed, I can acknowledge that I am often unloving, irritable, angry and resentful with those closest to me.  When I go to church I can leave my white hat at home and admit that I have failed.  God not only loves me as I am, but also knows me as I am.  Because of this I don't need to apply spiritual cosmetics to make myself presentable to Him.  I can accept ownership of my poverty and powerlessness and neediness. (pg. 23)

 

When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes.  I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty.  I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games.  Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.

 

To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark.  In admitting my shadow side, I learn who I am and what God's grace means.  As Thomas Merton put it, "A saint is not someone who is good but experiences the goodness of God." (pg 25).

 

 

Amen!  I have read and reread this chapter because it means so much to me.  The longer I stay sober, the more I have gratitude for the absolute despair brought on by active alcoholism, for as a result, I can feel grace in a way I would never be able to without it.  I am grateful I have also experienced the total despair of having, in sobriety, been confronted with the painful truth of my inadequacy and insufficiency.  As a result, I have felt grace shine down on my face like the sun peaking through the clouds on a cold winter day.  I have certainly had my fair share of days of desperately holding on to the concept of grace (intellectually), as my world crashes down around me, and in the ashes, feeling it sink to my heart.  God loves me.  Bumps and bruises, shame and imperfection.  God loves me. To stand up in times, when I should be full of despair, anger, hopelessness, and know this truth - that I am good because God loves me.  Period. 

 

So...I am grateful I can now fully feel and experience that grace when times are calm, when life is in neutral, and when I can embrace and celebrate that miraculousness of the ordinary.  I feel like that is a part of my progression.  I may pay for that assumption one day, but there was a time when, even sober, I had to have a roller coaster to fully experience the joy of life.  Now, I find joy in the ordinary.  I find peace in being a human among humans.  I have peace in just being.  Because God loves me.