Grace pt2

I’m sure you remember Katy’s 21st. The party in Chester, where you mixed with all her friends, and I only caught up with old Southampton-ers in the corner. I had a bit of a revelation (as often happens) when talking to Chris.

I suddenly realised that all the effort I’ve poured in to becoming a radical super Christian like Mark Driscoll has resulted in no positive impact on myself or the world whatsoever. Either I’ve failed to carry out my intentions (x hours of Bible study before breakfast), or I’ve done what I meant to (told my school mates throwing conkers at me, ‘I forgive you’) and it’s just been seen for the put-on religious nonsense it is.

But by contrast, I saw, the wonderful things that happened in my life when I ‘selfishly’ enjoyed God’s love for me, and then joyfully did not what I thought I ought to but what I actually wanted to. The best times of prayer, the most enjoyable routines, the most exciting conversations, tough acts of service that left me more psyched than when I started.

I’ve never had a problem with the idea that we are saved by grace – that our restored relationship with God is entirely achieved by Jesus, and that I contributed nothing to it except the evil from which I had to be forgiven and released. I don’t think you find this difficult either. Maybe I’ve found this easy to swallow because I don’t feel I’m a very bad person – I don’t feel the debt that God had to write off for me was very large. My problem with grace is that I didn’t realise there is more to it than that.

God doesn’t stop treating us with undeserved favour when we become a Christian: “Aha! Now I’ve got you! You’d better work solidly from now until you die, or I might change my mind and not save you from hell.” It’s completely the opposite. “If God did not spare his own son,... how will he not also graciously give us all things?” Being a Christian is receiving grace from start to finish. We’re chosen undeservedly, saved undeservedly, made like Jesus undeservedly, used to restore the world undeservedly, and undeservedly enjoy God’s direct and indirect love throughout the whole process. We weren’t just saved by grace. We get to live by grace.