This song has been in my head all weekend. I love Charlie’s music, and this new song just struck a chord in me. Grace is something I’m always learning about (mostly learning how little I understand it!), and he managed to put words to my inner feelings and experience of God’s grace. Grace is a fascinating, liberating, exhilarating spiritual truth that is too little understood and too scarcely taught in the church these days (IMHO). It’s the foundation of any real, meaningful experience of living in Christ. As long as we think we deserve it or can earn it, we’ll never really understand it. Grace reminds us that we don’t deserve it, that we could never earn it, and yet somehow, wonderfully, surprisingly, fantastically, God has given it to us anyway. The experience of grace is a breath of fresh air into a life that is weary of the uphill climb, worn out from the weight of sin, and exhausted from trying to outrun the ugliness in a heart that has been forgiven but most of the time does NOT feel like it. Grace says, “the race is over—you can rest now.” Grace says, “your sin is too heavy for you to carry—why not give it to me instead?” Grace says, “I know all about the ugliness in your heart…but I can give you the strength to face it without shame, because you have a new identity now, and who you are is no longer tied to that ugliness. You’re beautiful to me!”
Yes, grace has the power to bring liberating feelings and experiences to our interactions with God…but it is so much more than a feeling. It is a truth that we can stand on. It is a place we can really and truly “plant our feet,” and in my experience the foot-planting must come before the heart feeling. The choice to stand on the truth comes first, the feelings and experience of the truth follow. The Bible even tells us that grace is something we must stand in.
“…I have written to you briefly, encouraging you and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it.” – 1 Peter 5:12
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.” – Romans 5:1-2
So anyway, this is a recurring theme in my life, and this song reminded me of the foot-planting side of it….the choice to turn my face from the ugliness I know is in me, and instead to stand on the reality that God tells me is true—that because of Christ, I am forgiven, I have access to God, and there’s more grace and freedom and love and kindness than I’ve ever known. And I can choose to act on it even if my feelings aren’t there yet.
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