The World Looks As If It Has

The Life Of Grace Is Not An Effort On Our Part To Achieve A Goal We Set Ourselves. It Is A Continually Renewed Attempt Simply To Believe That Someone Else Has Done All The Achieving That Is Needed And To Live In Relationship With That Person, Whether We Achieve Or Not. If That Doesn't Seem Like Much To You, You're Right: It Isn't. And, As A Matter Of Fact, The Life Of Grace Is Even Less Than That. It's Not Even Our Life At All, But The Life Of That Someone Else Rising Like A Tide In The Ruins Of Our Death.

But All The While, There Was One Thing We Most Needed Even From The Start, And Certainly Will Need From Here On Out Into The New Jerusalem: The Ability To Take Our Freedom Seriously And Act On It, To Live Not In Fear Of Mistakes But In The Knowledge That No Mistake Can Hold A Candle To The Love That Draws Us Home. My Repentance, Accordingly, Is Not So Much For My Failings But For The Two-bit Attitude Toward Them By Which I Made Them More Sovereign Than Grace. Grace - The Imperative To Hear The Music, Not Just Listen For Errors - Makes All Infirmities Occasions Of Glory.

A Lost Sheep Is, For All Practical Purposes A Dead Sheep. It Is The Admission That We Are Dead In Our Sins---that We Have No Power Of Ourselves Either To Save Ourselves Or To Convince Anyone Else That We Are Worth Saving. It Is The Recognition That Our Whole Life Is Out Of Our Hands And That If We Ever Live Again, Our Life Will Be Entirely The Gift Of Some Gracious Shepherd. God Finds Us The Desert Of Death (not In The Garden Of Improvement) And In The Power Of Jesus' Resurrection, He Puts Us On His Shoulders Rejoicing And Brings Us Home.

Preachers Are Stewards Whom The Lord Has ‘set Over His Household Servants To Provide Them With Food At The Proper Time.’ After All The Years The Church Has Suffered Under Forceful Preachers And Winning Orators, Under Compelling Pulpiteers And Clerical Bigmouths With Egos To Match, How Nice To Hear That Jesus Expects Preachers In Their Congregations To Be Nothing More Than Faithful Household Cooks.

Grace Is The Celebration Of Life, Relentlessly Hounding All The Non-celebrants In The World. It Is A Floating, Cosmic Bash Shouting Its Way Through The Streets Of The Universe, Flinging The Sweetness Of Its Cassations To Every Window, Pounding At Every Door In A Hilarity Beyond All Liking And Happening, Until The Prodigals Come Out At Last And Dance, And The Elder Brothers Finally Take Their Fingers Out Of Their Ears.