Glimpses of Grace #4

When God shakes you to wake you about wrong thinking, it is a grace from him.

I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but BR (Before Romans), and somehow over the past years, I slid into this faulty middle thinking ground of ignoring the truth about eternal separation from God as the opposite of eternal salvation. 

I mean, doesn't God love everybody and know we're all doing the best we can just to make it on this earth, and won't He cut us some slack because it's really tough being human and He'll understand in the end and we'll all be happy ever after in heaven?

Romans makes it very clear that God is loving and merciful, but that He is also just and holy. God's word makes it very clear that not every one will live happily ever after. It makes very clear that rejection of Christ means condemnation. 

Every one of us is sinful and need saving. 

We all have a very big problem that we cannot solve.

This is so not grey. This is so "you're in" or "you're out." And that's just seems way too harsh. So exclusive. So black and white. 

Is it really that black and white?

There are actually some black and white - some stark opposite examples -  around us all the time.

Day/Night
Male/Female
Absence/Presence
Death/Life
Asleep/Awake

I was pondering all of this recently, when a scene from the movie, Knight and Day came to mind. 

Completely opposite results were at stake.
     With Tom, she'd make it.
     Without Tom, she wouldn't.

In this world, we are not without precedence for 1 of only 2 choices being present - being a reality - at a time. 

You are either asleep or awake.
You are either male or female.
You are either dead or alive.
You are either physically absent or physically present.
There is light or there is darkness.

So, for God to reveal to us in the Bible that there are only 2 realities that exist beyond life as we know on this earth is not far fetched or unrealistic. It is truth.

Now, this would be a harsh reality if the Bible taught that "you're out with no hope of getting in," but it doesn't teach that. It teaches that we are all out, but God, being rich in mercy, has made a way for us all to be in. 

He made a way for us to be in Christ. To be saved from eternal separation from Himself. 

God made a way by sending Jesus to take the punishment for our sins. God affirmed that Jesus' sacrifice and death was accepted by him when He raised Jesus from the dead 3 days after being crucified. This showed that Jesus was exactly who He said He was and that his death accomplished our salvation and defeated death! We are no longer condemned! He took our sin and gave us His righteousness and now - nothing but ultimate good in store for me - and anyone else who is saved by grace through faith in Christ!

Who does that? 

God does.  

My biggest problem has been eternally solved. 
I am no longer condemned before the holy, just God.

I'm loved! I am forgiven, justified, (being) sanctified and one day, I will be glorified and be with God forever. Nothing that happens to me now is punitive, but only purifying. He has promised there will be suffering on this earth, and I don't relish or look forward to that, but I pray and hope and trust God will give me the grace I need when I need it. 

And for a gazillion million infinties, I will be in Christ, with God. Part of His kingdom come!

That is a polar opposite from what my future could have been.

Grace. 
It's all grace.


8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Ephesians 2:8


Why Glimpses of Grace

Glimpses of Grace #2

Glimpses of Grace #3

Glimpses of Grace #3

Being born in a country where I have unlimited access to a Bible is a grace from God. 

Why me is all I can wonder.

But no matter where a person is born, each soul must decide what they believe about that good book.

I believe the Bible is God's revelation to mankind about Himself and ourselves and everything in between.

I believe the Bible is the word of the living God.

I believe this - not in a blindly accepting way that I did years ago, but in the blood, sweat, and tears of wrestling with questions.

Questions about taking it literally or not
Questions about the first 11 chapters of Genesis.
Questions about gaps and contradictions 
Questions about how it was written down and put together

I've wrestled with questions about the validity and authority of this book called the Bible. But God has answered most of those questions, and where mystery still lingers, I trust Him in and through that mystery. I believe the Bible is the way the triune God chose to tell us about Himself, mankind and His dealings with us throughout time and eternity.

While I've listened to teaching and read articles about the Bible, both pro and con, that discuss and argue about where it came from and how we have what we have today, I could not regurgitate any of it. I just can't keep straight how many fragments of scripture were found where and what year, etc. However, I came away from those times convinced that God did an amazing work bringing those 66 books together like He did.   

Moreover, scholars that I trust and admire and who have studied waaay more than I have, who can regurgitate important historical details, are also convinced the Bible is the book it claims to be. 

And, its words ring true to how life is. It doesn't sugar coat anything. And yet, it is still quite mysterious on many levels. That too, makes sense, because it is trying to describe - using finite, limited words - the infinite, sovereign, creator, all powerful God. 

The words of the Bible speak truth and life to me like no other words.

I can only explain this as a miracle. 

I became a Christian at 9, and from that point on, as a general life trajectory - though not perfectly by any means, I have hungered for God and his word. God did that in me. And since then, God has shown me sin-forgiving, life-giving, life-sustaining, sorrow-comforting, God-enlarging, battling-for-joy and hope-filled truth in the word of God. On my best days, God's word makes my heart soar and strengthens my soul. On my worst days, God's word, at the very least, keeps my head above the quicksand of this life that can so easily drag me down.  All that is such grace. 
I pray that it is slowly but surely translating into loving God more. 
I pray that it is slowly but surely translating into loving my neighbor more.

Hebrews 4:12

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.


Some of my favorite Bibles:

Bible given to me by my grandmother, Mama Trudy

LOVED this NT Bible for kids. (and the OT)
Kids played "Library" with it

  

Example of script and illustration from OT version of above Bible 

Bible given to Luke by his great grandmother the year he was born

My current Bible
Where so many things are underlined, and so many margin notes
Also, where "For my funeral" thoughts are recorded

Glimpses of Grace #2

On those days when what I believe about God and Jesus and heaven and hell and what He’s said and what He’s done seem almost too fantastic to believe - I go back to one solid fact.

Jesus did not stay dead.

His physical body came out of the grave and people saw him and ate with him and touched him and talked with him. 

No one else has ever done that.

I know he's not physically here now for me to see and eat with and touch and talk to. He went up into the clouds while his disciples looked on and was taken up into heaven. He then sent His Spirit to live in us. I know that sounds fantastic to believe too - but if you have done the hard part of coming alive again after being dead and buried 3 days, to believe an ascension is nothing.

Because:

       I’ve buried some people I love. My dad. My mom. My brother. My granddaughter. 

My dad was the first of those closest to me to die, and his unexpected death was such a sadness. At the risk of sounding a little crazy, during those first days after my dad's death, in that new, deep, and confusing sea of grief, I remember having flickers of desperate hoping - even after he was buried - that maybe, just maybe...he’s not really dead?

But dead and buried is dead and buried. You don’t come back to this earth from that.

But Jesus did not stay dead. He came back to this earth from that. 

I love these lyrics from Andrew Peterson’s song "His Heart Beats" describing Jesus' physical body coming back to life.

"His heart beats, His blood begins to flow

Waking up what was dead a moment ago

And His heart beats, now everything is changed

‘Cause the blood that brought us peace with God

Is racing through His veins

And His heart beats

His heart beats..."

  

If somebody rises from the dead - and Jesus did - then there is a power in them/surrounding them/about them that is more powerful than anything ever. 

If someone is that powerful and that amazing, I want to know all I can know about them. Why would I not believe everything somebody who rose from the dead said? 

So, on my days when doubts want to dominate, I remind myself of this historical fact. 

       Jesus did not stay dead.

He proved by this one act that he is who he said he is.

I'm staking my life on that.

Why Glimpses of Grace series

Glimpses of Grace #1

For weeks now, I've had the desire to write down some thoughts regarding what I believe about God - for myself, for my family, and for the world. 

This desire has been fueled by a couple of things.

First, from September 2017-May 2018, I was studying and teaching the book of Romans.

It has changed me. 

Although I've been a born again believer since I was 9 years old, I feel like I'm just now getting a glimpse of what it means to know the grace of God to me. I want to talk about that glimpse - about that grace.

A story I read days after I purposed to blog about my faith described what I sensed stirring in me. I read about a conversion experience a teenager had while he worked the graveyard shift in a Kraft Cheese factory. He wrote:

     "...what happened that night in the factory was so real that I had to tell someone. I simply couldn't NOT talk about it." (from The Insanity of God by Nik Ripken)

So, my desire to talk is present, but what does that "telling" look like? A Francis Bacon quote about writing untangling thoughts came to mind.

                        "Reading maketh a full man; 

                            conference a ready man; 

                               and writing an exact man."

I have found that thinking/writing, rethinking/rewriting makes me focus/refocus like nothing else. Writing is an effective way for me to untangle and tell my thoughts.

Now, having said that, I enter this God/grace adventure with a bit of a weight, knowing that I don't know everything, that I'm tackling the subject of the ages, that I have no degree but an appropriately labeled BS in Biology, and I'm subjecting myself to the potential criticism of literally a world of people. 

But if I am staking my life and death on some truths about God that affect my soul (and yours) both now and eternally, how can I not want to talk about that? 

It's the question of life, isn't it?

So, for at least the foreseeable future, Lord willing, I'll be here on Thursdays to talk about God and grace, what I believe and why, and the work, joy and struggle it all is most every day.

 I hope you join me.

Our Grand

Our Grand

Our grand small
 Her life large

Her time brief 
Our eyes brimmed

The mom’s pain
The dad’s care

Their arms full
Their girl held

Her heart still
Our hearts broke

The grief great
The Help more

God’s strength here
Our hope sure

                                   --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Violet Louise Hughes

March 4, 2018 - March 4, 2018