Grace

I don't understand it and I'm sure none of us will ever completely understand until we're with Him. Grace is so beautiful, complicated and can easily become a spark for ugliness.
I'm still making my way through Transforming Grace: Living Confidently in God's Unfailing Love. (That is an enormous title so I'm going to refer to the book as Transforming Grace) As I read each chapter I'm challenged to assess the ways I've been thinking, how I view and approach grace. Most of the time I realize that I was missing something all along. I think its so easy for us to get into the 'works' mindset, especially since that's the way the world around us works. Everything: school, work, other religions are all founded on you get what you put into it. Sometimes that is how Christianity works...in understanding things putting time into studying. But salvation, life, and heaven.....not at all. Its all grace. Being the hardworking student and employee that I am, I realize by the world's standards the more hours I put in at work, the more I get paid. Is that how it works in the Kingdom. No. The book spent a little over a chapter talking about a parable that Jesus shared, the parable of the landowner: Matt 20:1-16 It basically pointed out that someone who goes to work at 8 am and stays till 5pm, will get paid the same amount as someone who works from 4pm to 5pm. The world and the worldliness in us scoffs and complains about fairness. Those who worked less didn't earn their pay. What Jesus is saying is that those who worked the full day didn't really earn it either. He was being generous to both, especially the one who worked less.

Relating this to salvation. He freely gives the free gift of eternal life to whomever He choses. There will be those who have been believers longer and there will be those who just recently became believers. There will be those who had their daily quiet times and those who may have never read the bible. In the parable as the workers complain, the landowner says, "Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am so generous?" The author later told a story about an English class consisting of hard workers and slackers. In the end all recieved A's. I can imagine the look on some of the slackers' faces....they know they don't deserve the A, and yet the professor was so generous--not only did he not let them fail but he gave them an excellent grade. We, as Christians, need to realize that all our efforts combined still reward us with a failing grade. Its by God's grace that we get over and above what we deserve!!!