Week 3 - Grace
This week in summary| Day 1 : An Audience with the King | Romans 1 |
| Day 2 : Fire and Jesus | Romans 2 |
| Day 3 : Justified | Romans 3 |
| Day 4 : Prepare | Ephesians 1 |
| Day 5 : Planning | Ephesians 2 |
| Day 1 : An Audience with the King | Romans 1 |
| Day 2 : Fire and Jesus | Romans 2 |
| Day 3 : Justified | Romans 3 |
| Day 4 : Prepare | Ephesians 1 |
| Day 5 : Planning | Ephesians 2 |
How can you know if things are going well between you and God? Maybe you’re living life blissfully unaware that you’re on a collision course with disaster. Maybe tragedy knocked you to the floor and you need to sort things out with God. Maybe you’re convinced you were given a crappy draw at life and you want to take it up with management.
How could you get an audience with God?
What if God was too busy to listen to you? On average 4 people are born each second on earth. This means if God were limited by time and attention the way we are, he would only have a quarter of a second to touch base with you. That’s enough time for you so pronounce the first letter in your name before God needs to turn his attention to someone else. What if he’s too busy attending to everyone else on the planet and just doesn’t have time to get to you.
Well, little snowflake, What makes you so special?
Why do you think you deserve an audience with the High creator of the earth, our galactic super cluster and all that exists; the one who created beauty and is called “beautiful beyond description.”
How are you going to get God’s attention?
Put simply, we don’t deserve God’s attention let alone his favor and there is nothing we can ever do to change that. Since we can’t earn God’s favor in this life, what hope is there for us after we are dead?
However, there’s good news. God did for us what we can’t do for ourselves. God gives us his attention, his favor and his love as a free gift. God sent Jesus to connect us with God. Jesus is the only one who has the right to stand before God because of who he is (Son of God) and because of what he’s done (died on the cross, paying for all of humanity’s offenses against God)
Putting it another way we enter heaven by the credit Jesus earned. It is a gift from God.
If you are still trying to earn God’s favor, why are you trying to earn what you’ve already been given? Just believe that it’s already happened and celebrate, give thanks to Jesus for doing what we couldn’t do. If we could earn God’s favor, then we could brag about how we earned it. We could sell ways for others to achieve God’s favor. We could compete with others for it. We could use it to coerce others. Worst of all, we would have leverage over God diminishing Him, everything and everyone. That’s not possible.
God gave us Jesus as a gift. That’s how we know we’re in good with God.
So how will you approach God? Trusting in your own merit or trusting that Jesus has provided what we couldn’t earn?
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” Romans 1:16-17
There are so many trivial things in this world that are based on what we earn and deserve. It’s easy for us to start to see everything through this filter. My rights and what I deserve become my chief concerns. This leads to judgment. Judgment kills. Grace makes us alive.
Grace is the way God operates by a different economy than we are used to. Grace is the economy of giving and gratitude. Grace is getting blessings we don’t deserve and not getting the crap we do.
To picture grace, imagine brave men and women running into a burning building to save victims. The rescuers don’t check your criminal history or bank account. They look for everyone they can save. For people trapped in a burning building the question is this: “Are you going to trust your rescuer or are you going to resist them?” When the firefighter comes bursting into your room, you grab hold of him with all your strength. So it is with Jesus. Grab a hold of him for dear life.
Salvation comes by the grace of the rescuers, not the merit of the trapped.
What’s become horrifying is that there are trapped people who ignore the rescue operation instead playing perverse religious games as if it will lead to salvation. While flames leap around them, they compete with each other over who is the better victim. The building falls apart and they teach postures and rituals. Death surrounds them and they carry on in their delusion. All the while Jesus runs into danger, reaching through the flames, yelling at the top of his lungs, “TAKE MY HAND I CAN SAVE YOU!” And we sit back thinking “maybe I should get washed up first?”
How do we claim that what we’re doing is right? Let’s examine some of the ways humanity tries to leverage favor from God.
To start there is an extreme approach to life that rejects any kind of sense and decency. It goes beyond simple free spiritedness; it’s a rejection of all morals. It’s extremely rare because most people who claim to be a type of anarchist still believe in some sort of fair play. Watch them bristle with moral objection when something is taken from them. The amoral approach to life is easiest to reject it brings about its own destruction in spectacular drama.
Being a good moral person doesn’t put us in good standing with God. He judges by actions and for all the good we claim and bad we forget, God has a more accurate view of our lives than our rose colored lenses. We’re moral but we’re hypocrites. We know it’s wrong but we do it anyways and we hope God won’t notice. But God is no fool. Ironically, God could impartially judge any of us by our own favorite standard and we would still fail, every one of us.
Some of us just have more to offer than the average person. We’re privileged by knowledge of the truth, family, religion, or some special power. Because of our privilege we’ll be judged by a higher standard but we’re failing the basic standards of human decency. We know the truth and yet we live contrary to it. We are part of a healthy community and religion but we fail in ways that the ignorant and isolated succeed. We are bringing down God’s reputation among those who don’t know him. We are privileged by God and we make him look bad.
Some of us have great accomplishments next to our names. But all our accomplishments are worthless compared to God’s accomplishments. Only accomplishments in obedience to God have any value, and those are done in His name and for His glory. What can our accomplishments compare to his?
There is no status, achievement or lifestyle that can justify us before God. We have no leg to stand on. The only thing left for us is to believe that God accomplished through Jesus what we couldn’t do for ourselves.
Write your life vision statement:
What your top 4 strengths?
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2
3
4
What are 4 of your weaknesses?
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2
3
4
Identify 4 opportunities facing you right now that may advance your purpose and vision
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2
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4
Identify 4 threats facing you right that hinder your purpose and vision
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How can you use your strengths to take advantage of opportunities?
How can you use your strengths to overcome threats?
How can you take advantage of opportunities in your weakness?
What can you do to mitigate or avoid threats against your weaknesses?
| Strengths | Weaknesses | |
| Strengths - Opportunities | Weaknesses - Opportunities | |
|---|---|---|
Opportunities | Prayer: Plan: | Prayer: Plan: |
| Strengths - Threates | Weaknesses - Threats | |
Threats | Prayer: Plan: | Prayer: Plan: |