If a friend ever said to me, “Hey, Mark! Do you like the idea of sometimes getting more than you deserve?”, it would take me a few seconds to wrap my brain around the idea. Then I’d probably say, “Well, sure!” Then I’d wonder about whether that’s fair; can I get more than I deserve without someone else getting less than they deserve? But I think I’d eventually – if my friend gave me the time, & didn’t walk away as I blankly stared into the distance, mulling it over – meander my way to the realization that that’s what grace is: getting more than you deserve. And since the source of grace is God, and God’s supply of grace is enormous, He can dispense a lot of it without shortchanging anybody.
I’m not a proper theologian, so I won’t try to go too deep with all that, but will cut to the chase about grace.
Grace costs somebody something. If grace is, by definition, getting something good that you don’t deserve, then, well, somebody is choosing to give you something good instead of holding on to it for themselves. That’s true on the job, at home, or in the parking lot. When you’ve got first crack at a great parking spot in the pouring rain, and you stop and let me take it instead, you’re giving me grace. It’s more than being “nice”; it’s costing you something: you have to park further away, and you get soaking wet getting from your car to the store because you gave it to me.
Here’s what I’ve come to: In this broken world I live in, full of broken people – including me – I have to make peace with two things regarding grace.
First, I have to make peace with the reality that other people need grace, and I am in a position to extend it to them, every day. To the other driver whose driving is making me nervous. (Or mad.) To my colleague who forgets to do what he said he’d do – and I have to work late to cover. To the guy yakking away on his cell phone, walking down the middle of the sidewalk, forcing me to step out of the way against the wet building to avoid him. Something in me wants to correct, rebuke, ridicule, set the other guy straight. But grace means letting him off the hook, & leaving judgment of his character & behavior to the only One qualified to judge. If I want to be a conduit of grace, it’s going to cost me something every day, multiple times. I’ve got to make peace with that.
Second, I have to make peace with the reality that I need grace, that my foibles and mistakes (and yes, sin) cost other people something every day, and to the degree that I am not reprimanded, rebuked, and made to pay restitution to others constantly, I am enjoying grace. At someone else’s expense. I am, in some sense, a debtor to my fellow human beings. I’ve got to make peace with that – even though it offends my ego, my pride, and my inflated sense of self-righteousness.
Theologian or not, I believe that God is the source of grace – grace that He shows me directly, and grace that He shows me through others. The Apostle Peter – after the grace of God had turned his youthful bravado into mature compassion – urged each 1st century Christian to “use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms” (1st Peter 4:10.)
Interestingly, God is not stingy with grace, but continues to inject it into the hearts of those who ask Him for it. Even though we are inclined to withhold grace, “He gives us more grace… God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6).
I believe that God created us to be with Him, but our sin separates us from Him, and we can’t purge it from ourselves by doing good deeds. Sin is like bad code, insidious malware in our human operating system that requires more than we’ve got at our disposal to purge. I can’t be Mr. Grace, & I can’t earn my way into heaven if I could.
And that’s where the sign in the end zone comes in: John 3:16. God loves the world enough to send His own Son on a mission to redeem us, even though it cost Jesus His life. Jesus died and rose again, paying the price for the sin of humanity, and everyone who trusts in Him is forgiven and welcomed by God into His eternal family.
God started this whole grace thing. In spite of a world full of undeserving, self-absorbed humans, God’s Son Jesus left heaven to come and die for us. If grace is a mighty river, that is the headwaters. I first understood that when I was 16 – that I needed grace, and that Jesus died to give it to me. And now, I’m on a journey of making it a habit to pass grace on. I want to be able to say, like the Apostle Paul: “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace to me was not without effect” (1st Corinthians 15:10).
And when I get to the end zone, I hope & pray I can be described – by the grace of God – as a team player on God’s mission of grace.