The WORD of the Day:
"Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who
has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace,
comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work."
--II
Thessalonians 2:16-17
Let Me Give You a Lift:
The
book of II Thessalonians is a letter from Paul to one of the First Century
churches. The church at Thessalonica had a special place in Paul's heart,
because it is one of the churches that he helped establish during his
missionary journeys. He knew the people he was writing to, and the book
contains several personal blessings like the one above. The letter is one
of praise for good work, and encouragement to keep pressing on; sort of a First
Century "keep up the good work" message.
Many of Paul's blessings follow a two-part formula similar to the one above, in which he says 'this is my prayer for you, and this is why I know God will be faithful to answer it.' Here, Paul is praying that God will comfort and strengthen his brethren, while reminding those brethren that God loves them and has given them the gift of hope through Christ by grace.
So what is grace? Grace is one of those theological terms
that all Christians grow up using and have an inherent sense of, but sometimes
have a hard time explaining to others. I've heard a friend say before that
explaining grace is like trying to explain the air; we know it's there, but how
do we put it into words?
What you will hear some people say about grace is that it is
"unmerited favor" or “undeserved kindness” from God. Basically,
the kind of graciousness people show to each other, only applied to God. The verse most often pointed to in
illustrating this “unmerited favor” is John 3:16, where Jesus says:
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
But
“unmerited favor” really only reflects the first half of that verse: God gave
us Jesus because He loves us. No one
deserved it, but God did it anyway. That is what happened. But grace is not
what happened, grace is the byproduct: because Jesus died, we all have the
opportunity to live! So there must be something more.
The
Greek word we translate as “grace” is “charis.”
According to Strong's Exhaustive Bible Concordance, charis means:
the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life; including gratitude.
Now
we are on to something. Grace is not just the offering of a gift we don’t
deserve. Grace occurs when we accept the gift. When we allow our hearts to be
filled and our lives to be changed, when we are transformed by God—that is
grace. And gratitude is a natural byproduct.
So
why do we need to understand what grace means? I can think of two important
reasons. First, all of the other gifts
from God—love, comfort, strength, hope—are part and parcel to that “divine
influence upon the heart.” We will never
truly understand the magnitude of God until we understand grace.
Secondly,
we are called to show grace to other people, and in order to do that, we must
understand what grace is. Jesus taught us to love
our enemies, to refrain from judging
people, and to be a good
neighbor. In one sense that is giving others “unmerited favor,” but in a
much deeper sense, we are showing other people the divine influence God has on
our hearts by how we live our lives.
Give it a Listen:
Today's song is "The Lost Get Found" by Britt
Nicole. It's a song about how sometimes we can get discouraged when we aren't sure how to make a difference (or even if what we do matters). The message is, everything we do affects someone, even when we don't know it. My favorite line: "don't be afraid to stand out, that's how the lost get found."
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