Grace - God Is What God Does

Grace - God Is What God Does

Below is an excerpt from an article by Bert White.  Enjoy!

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy

"Jesus was above all things a revolutionary with a radical message. Most folks do not tend to see Jesus as an insurrectionist or a divine insurgent but make no mistake; His message was anything but tame.  ....Jesus makes an unmistakably clear connection with loving people and the coming of the Kingdom of God. That is because a true relationship with God is impossible without loving people (1 John 4:7, 8). The revolution of Jesus' subversive kingdom was a revolution of love. He overthrew the satanic strongholds of hatred, intolerance and religion that marred the image of His creation. The powers that He overthrew were neither territorial, nor geographical but were those powers that disfigured a person's soul. His revolution was inward and spiritual, a revolution of the heart. One of the ways that Jesus demonstrated the love of God was by showing people grace. Jesus was quick to point out that laws and rules will not bring people into the kingdom… only love will.

Rom 5:20 (MSG) "All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down."

Aggressive? Forgiveness? Gracing people into the kingdom? Now that seems pretty hard! You may ask how I can aggressively forgive when so much has been done to me. That may work for Jesus … but that's a different story for me. From my experience it is those who have experienced forgiveness that are more readily to give it away. I believe that the most powerful weapon of the New Covenant is forgiveness. If we have a problem with forgiving it is usually because we are making ourselves to be a judge and if we do that we have a need to establish guilt and punishment to vindicate our sense of justice. The only problem with that is that if we walk through life as the judge we end up entrapped in our own cell of bitterness.

Showing love will definitely challenge us, but it will also change us. The kingdom of God is demonstrated every time we choose love over hate, love over unforgiveness, love over intolerance, love over greed, love over violence, and love over injustice. I believe the way of love is the better way. I think that the love of God is the simple answer to all our complex questions.

Love tells us the truth when all we have ever known are lies. Love tells us that we are accepted when all we have ever known is rejection. Love tells us of freedom when all we have known is addiction. Love tells us about grace when all we have ever known is religion.

We are called to be an army in a revolution of love. We are the healers in broken places, pouring ourselves out to a hurting and suffering world. As Donald Miller says "We're called to hold our hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding" and the only way is by demonstrating the Love of God.

… and love without stopping. (1 Cor. 16:14, the Message)"

Live Loved – Bert White