The church today seems to fall into two ditches – unwavering doctrine without a spirit of love, or over-accommodation without a spirit of discernment. How can we walk instead in the spirit of grace? Author Philip Yancey has some thoughts on grace in the church today:
“We get the opposite of what we deserve. We deserve wrath, we get God’s love.”
This amazing transfer of wrath and righteousness should lead us to awe, humility, and an eagerness to share the news with others. Yet Philip says this is not necessarily the case. He points out the outrageous grace present in the ministry of Jesus. “Those who seemed most threatened by Jesus were the seemingly most godly and religious.”
“The world doesn’t run on grace. ‘You bomb me, I bomb you back.’ Grace goes against that. We look for those who fall through the cracks. Who were the first Americans to get the Ebola virus? Christian missionaries. If we Christians look for those cracks, the world says ‘Oh, there’s something different about these people. There’s something different about what they believe.'”
When we truly understand the concept of grace, we freely give it to the people we come across in life. Philip calls these people “grace dispensers.” He shares the story of a Canadian woman who felt called to minister to telemarketers. She would listen to their sales pitch, wait for them to finish, and then ask how she might pray for them. This is a tangible way we can spread grace to others.
Philip also has a word for those who feel a call into public office – we must take a different approach than those who haven’t been saved.
“We can’t just do politics like everybody else does politics – which is fight, fight, fight. We use the weapons of grace. Approach the authorities, articulate your case in a winsome manner. Early Christians didn’t change the system by overthrowing it. They changed it by showing a better way to live.”
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