GRACE - IT REALLY IS AMAZING!

“There is nothing you can do to make God love you more. There is nothing you can do to make God love you less.” Phillip Yancey

So does this mean that once we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior and understand that God loves us unconditionally, we can go out and live like hell without consequence to our behavior? Is it okay for believers to live in sin—to lie, steal, cheat, be immoral—because they have “fire insurance”? If there is nothing I can do to make God love me less, then I guess anything goes and I’ll see you in heaven.

I was reared in the very conservative church world of western Canada in an ultra-conservative British home. My Scottish mother was from a family of fervent Christians. My dad was born in England into a very strong Christian family of the tribe known as Methodists. My paternal granddad was a serious follower of Jesus and several books that he used for study and reference are now in my library.

My conservative family upbringing got confused in my mind by some of the teachings of the church we attended. My home church stressed God’s unconditional love (today we call this the “grace message”) and they taught that what you did after you got saved was really not that important; you were going to be okay, no matter what. When I was an adolescent, the founding pastor taught on grace and I heard him say, “The only reason I don’t smoke and drink is because you don’t pay me enough.” Believe me, such remarks leave an impression on a young mind. This man’s irresponsible statements and the conduct of some leaders in our church had a powerful impact on me and I was terribly confused about what grace really meant. On the one hand, there were rules we were expected to follow and things we were not allowed to do. On the other, we were taught that nothing can detract from your life in Christ and we were going to get to heaven no matter what.

To be raised in this kind of schizophrenia was confusing. It’s amazing that any of my friends and I ended up serving the Lord (well, I am actually concerned about one guy from Toronto, another from Edmonton, and a couple of the guys from B.C.).

So, who was right and who was wrong? Frankly, I think they are both right—and wrong! On the one side, you have the overly strict world of legalism that just loves to set rules and judge people. On the other, you have the carefree world of extreme Calvinism that doesn’t want to hold anybody responsible for anything, especially themselves. One side is busy measuring the length of ladies’ skirts and the other side has lost much of its sense of moral and ethical behavior. One side is loaded with nitpickers and the other with loophole exploiters. I believe the high ground is the middle ground and that’s where I try to live.

I believe that as followers of Jesus we have great security in Him. He does not judge and condemn us because of our mistakes but works with us to help us learn from our mistakes, to grow in Him, and finally to mature. 1 John 1:9 was written for believers who screw up. I also believe He has given us a free will and has chosen to limit His sovereignty in respect of the freedom of choice He has given us. We are free to choose both to follow or not to follow. If we choose not follow Him, He doesn’t lose anything; we have exercised our free will and chosen to lose everything.

Paul asked, “Is grace a license to sin?” and then he cried out emphatically, “Absolutely not!” (Romans 6:1-2) Paul went on to teach us that we are dead to sin. It is my experience that occasionally the old man tries to sit up in the casket and sometimes, to my own embarrassment, I let him rise up and then a struggle ensues. Most of the time when there’s a stirring in the casket, I remind the “old man” to “lie down and act like you’re supposed to—dead!” When I linger too long before telling him to lie down, that’s a mistake on my part and then, thank God for 1 John 1:9. The moment we confess our mistake, the old man is forced to lie down; when we confess our mistake, the authority of the throne of grace is brought to bear on the situation and the old man has no alternative but to lie down and be dead!

The older I get the more I realize how passionate God’s love is for His children. Grace really is amazing!