Where Do You Draw the Line with Grace? - Steve’s Letter February 2015

Key Life ^ | February 4, 2015 | Steve Brown

[Idaho_Cowboy]

I had lunch with a young man yesterday. He is a math and science teacher, and a very intense and focused Christian. He came to lunch with an agenda. First, he wanted to confess to being very angry with me when he first started reading my books and hearing me preach. This young man said, laughing, that I would be shocked by some of the things he wrote in the margins of my books. Second, now that he was no longer angry, he wanted to ask some clarifying biblical and theological questions.

I’m often asked, “Okay, I get this grace thing, but where do you draw the line?”

My standard answer is that you don’t; and when you do, it’s no longer grace. Grace covers white lies, murder and porn. It’s an umbrella that invites gays, lesbians, adulterers, liars and thieves. It’s for the pretenders of goodness and obedience. It covers the arrogant, the fat, the angry and the failures. It’s for everybody who is unqualified.

And then I will often ask, “Why do you want to draw a line?”

The drawing of the line is more often than not an effort to attain power, manipulate, affirm one’s own righteousness and keep out the spiritual cretins from the “family.” Drawing a line is the stuff of which religious institutions are made. I find myself getting quite irritated when people do that. (I know that’s self-righteousness too…and I repent. Grace covers the self-righteous…even those who, like me, are self-righteous about the self-righteous.)…

…There is (and you know it’s true) a mushy kind of grace sort of like what Reno attributes to political liberalism. It’s a “let’s join hands and sing Kumbaya around the campfire. You’re okay and I’m okay…so just keep singing because the singing is the important thing.”…

[Idaho_Cowboy]

God is doing the work — not us.
No not really... You have to make a conscious decision...get up, get dressed, get in your car, drive to the church and walk the isle to get that grace.. it is a work

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You don't have to go anywhere. Seek and ye shall find, ask and ye shall receive. Jesus says behold and stand at the door and knock. All it takes is to cry out to God that you are sinner in need of a savior. A simple “remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.. .” from a repentant heart is all it takes.

No man, no church, no baptism, and no work conveys God's grace. There is no outward work to opening a door or accepting a free gift.

Revelation 3:20“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”

And what beautiful picture these verses present. Open the door of your heart and Jesus will come and then he breaks bread with us. Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”