Jesus and Grace

Being a Christian can be frustrating. Those who most loudly claim to be Christ's followers can seem strident, mean-spirited and unkind. Most of them are committed to one worldview, a type of politics that excludes everyone but them. Their God seems petty, angry and untrustworthy. You never know if He's going to pour out His wrath on you or dole out some kind of mysterious blessing that could be interpreted 16 different ways.

But God is not who most people think He is. He is not mad at them or waiting to send them into eternal punishment. The tragic deaths of infants or of millions in natural disasters are not His will. He loves everyone -- and that includes criminals, corrupt politicians and Darth Vader-like corporate sharks, cheaters and slanderers, gay and transgender people, blasphemers, strippers, hookers, guys who surf porn and men and women just trying to get by who might bend the rules now and then. 

He is not the Punisher. He is not the Condemner. He is not the Ultimate Naysayer. He is not the Chief Hater of gays, adulterers or abortion doctors. He does not hate divorced people or people living common law. He does not hate people who smoke pot or crack or snort cocaine.

That doesn’t mean he's cool or OK with all that, but He loves all sinners. He knows we don't have much of a choice about doing things wrong, because we're lost. Until He's invited into someone's life, He's largely on the outside looking in, trying to influence people on the edges, and it's been that way since the beginning. He used the bloodline of a family –  Abraham's – and then a tribe and a nation – Israel – to spread His message and eventually pave the way for His Son to come so He could save us -- not condemn us and throw us into hell.

Jesus put it this way -- “For if anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not condemn him, because I did not come to condemn the world but to save it.” (John 12:47)

In the next verse, He says people will be judged, based on whether they accept or reject Him. But then how many have really heard the message of grace that He brought?

In the book of James, it says – “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow” (James 1:17)

And in Hebrews, it says –“He that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6)

God rewards, He doesn’t punish. 

God loves, He doesn’t hate. 

God is a giver, not a taker. 

And He’s not bipolar. He doesn’t withhold things from us. He doesn’t only heal or bless people if it’s “His will”, or if He just happens to be in the right mood or feels like it that day, or if you have accumulated just the right collection of good deeds that week, month, year or decade. He is always on our side.

Addressing all the false and confusing beliefs about God, Jesus said – 

"There isn't a person among you who would give his son a stone if he asked for bread, is there? Or if he asks for a fish, he wouldn’t give him a snake, would he? So if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who keep on asking him! (Matt. 7: 9-11, International Standard Version)

God is good. All the time. And He wants to give us good things. 

He’s not religious. He wants to have relationships with people and communicate with them on the inside, at the level of the heart.

Religion and Christian denominations have tried to confine God with cathedrals, monasteries and stained-glass windows; with orders, hierarchies, liturgies and rites. They have set up barriers between us and God, not to make Him accessible, but to keep Him far away in Heaven, way beyond us. And their teachings are aimed at trying to get us to save ourselves through good works, which is not what Jesus taught.

Jesus said the Kingdom is within us. And that the Kingdom is righteousness (being right with God and accepted by Him), peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, whom God sent to teach, guide and comfort every believer.

Most of us have also looked at God the Father the wrong way for a long, long time. He is not some Holy Old Man with flowing white hair and a long beard waiting up beyond the clouds to zap us with thunder and lightning bolts. No, a thousand, a million times no.

And God may not be completely apolitical, but if Jesus were here now he wouldn't go around organizing anti-gay marriage rallies or barricading abortion clinics or burning issues of Hustler magazine. All that just pours oil on the fires of hatred and makes Christians look like lunatics who want to set up some kind of ultra-religious state.

If you want to see what God would do here on earth, look at Jesus, who said --

“Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9)

When you read the New Testament, you don’t see Jesus organizing protest rallies against the Romans or King Herod or the various immoral establishments around Jerusalem.  

If there was a situation where He might have done something like that, it might have been to protest against John the Baptist being thrown into prison, but He didn’t do that. In fact John the Baptist got beheaded for doing that kind of thing, for speaking out against Herod marrying his brother’s widow. But you don’t see Jesus and the disciples marching outside the palace, chanting “Free the Baptist! Free the Baptist!” 

Instead, Jesus was focused on doing His Father’s work. Healing the sick, the blind, the deaf and the lame. Healing all who came to him, unless people didn't believe in Him. (See Mathew 13:58)  

And he wasn’t particular. He ministered to prostitutes, tax collectors (considered much lower than any used-car salesmen or telemarketing supervisors today), Roman soldiers and thieves (such as the man on the cross beside Him) – never condemning them or calling them out as wicked sinners. And He gave all of it for free.

But even better than all of this – in fact far better -- is that He paid the price to remove the final barrier between us and God. Even though He Himself had never done anything wrong, He  allowed Himself to take on everything that was wrong with us -- all our sin and all the baggage that went with it; including sickness, disease, mental instability and any curse known to humanity. Through His death and Resurrection He took it away and got rid of it, forever.

He also left us a fantastic inheritance – the power to live in Him – free from sin, sickness or disease. We just have to learn to receive it and walk in it. And it all operates by faith through His Grace – unmerited favour from God that we don’t deserve.

I know, it all sounds way too good to be true. In fact most people think that it can’t really be true. It’s too simple, too pie-in-the-sky, too easy. But it is true and available to anyone who will believe.

Now who am I, writing this, you may ask. Just an ex-sinner, a former lost person who is still far from perfect and has to ask for forgiveness from his wife, his co-workers and many others in his life far more often than he would like to. But someone who is getting to know more about God's grace and favour all the time, and who's found that to be the true centre of the gospel. An alive and liberating force. A life flow with spiritual roots -- nothing like rigid religious living. And if more people knew that was God's message, organized Christianity might not be quite as organized, but it would have a much more powerful influence on this world.