As I am
challenged periodically to confront my own tendency to be more of a recipient
and consumer of Grace, I am reminded that Grace must be, and indeed IS a two-way
street. Though we may tend to focus on being a Grace recipient, the fact
is the Grace God gives to us is not entirely for
us alone, but is largely intended to flow through us to other ‘Grace-needers’
along our path. Grace-needers are especially people who do not know God through
Christ at all, and those who know Him, but whose faith may be too weak to
access more of God’s Grace directly. Our tendency to store up His offerings in
our ‘Grace vaults’ effectively robs a needful world of this tremendous resource
and power.
Rather than
stored in vaults of our hearts and minds, consider an alternative mental image
of God’s Grace intent -- like a drip irrigation hose through which pressurized
water flows and drips out through various spaghetti-like feeders, to thirsty
plants along the path of the hose. Rather than focusing on getting the
Grace we need to get through tough situations, this picture changes our focus
to becoming ‘Grace conduits’. A
conduit never has to worry about getting more and retaining a stock of
that which flows through it. It simply receives, transmits, and drips out that
which its master feeds to and through it.
Four times, God’s
Word underscores, ‘The just shall live by His faith.’ In another post (http://jwootenjr.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-just-shall-live-by-grace.html) I interpolate this as ‘The just
shall live by Grace’, since faith is the means by which we gain access to God’s
Grace power to live lives pleasing to Him.
The Christian
reformation, ignited by Martin Luther in Germany in the 18th century
and greatly expanded by more recent insights into God’s Word, has adjusted our
focus on the need to please God through a life lived by faith. Considerable emphases
have been placed on the scriptural ‘policies,
procedures and practices’ of living by faith. But along with more
Christians endeavoring to live by faith come clashes and confrontations on what
faith ‘looks like’. This could easily happen when the intensified focus on faith
is not balanced with an appropriate accent on God’s Grace, which faith is
designed to access, receive, utilize and transmit.
Yea, its by our faith we righteous shall live,
But our faith is known by the Grace we give…
