EFFORTLESS GRACE EXCERPT

The following is an excerpt from a book I am writing. I am asking for help, for REAL world expereince and wisdom, because I do not want to rely on my own wisdom in writing this book. The idea to do this, to ask you, people who read this blog for help, came from prayer, and from reflection. Please feel free to criticize. I can take it. Above all else, be honest, because I am asking you to be. Thank you very much. God bless you all.

Grace can change a life in a moment, but it can also take twenty-five years of sin before grace wipes all of the past away, even for someone who believes.

Grace is always with us, a constant for those who believe in Jesus Christ for Eternal life. But what does grace do? What does it accomplish? To answer those questions, we need to look within the scope of our own lives, for although grace comes as a gift to all who believe in Christ, it meets each one of us at different times, and in different ways. Grace is the essential ingredient to faith. Without it, there is no belief, and without belief, there is no eternal life.

I believe grace can be defined in several ways. The word grace can be defined biblically as being unearned favor. It is not the same as justice and mercy. Justice is getting what we deserve, while mercy is not getting what we deserve. Using justice and mercy as sort of an equation for a definition, grace is us getting what we do not deserve. That’s a clinical definition of grace.

The definition I prefer is much more personal. It is your story. It is my story. It is the story of a changed life. It is the story of the gospel. Before Christ, the destiny of man was death. After Christ, after grace, the hope of man is life, residing in Jesus Christ.

Have you ever tried to tell someone about the gospel using only the verses in the Bible that we think prove us right? What was the reaction? I have done it several times in the past, and the reaction was always not what I had hoped for. The person I was talking to would immediately get defensive, and start claiming that I was self-righteous. Several times, my listener’s voice was raised, and once, I was even called a double-talking liar. Most of the time, the minute we begin preaching bible verses at someone who doesn’t know Jesus, the conversation has already begun to end. The listener is looking for a way out, a way to leave this preacher who makes him feel so uncomfortable, and so worthless.

Last, I would probably never be given another chance with this person who is lost without Christ. It won’t happen, because that person doesn’t want to hear the same things he has always heard from “Christians”, judgment, scripture, and a sound dose of disagreement. Having lost my chance with this fellow, I turn to look for my next victim. Yes, I said victim, if all we are doing is preaching AT the lost.

Now let’s infuse some grace into the conversation, so that it can be a conversation in the first place. Remember my favorite definition of grace? Here is where it enters. Between Paul’s third missionary journey, and his eventual placement in prison at Rome, Paul had opportunity to present Christ to six different audiences, most of them unsympathetic and hostile towards him. Each time he faced these audiences, he did not resort to finger pointing, and threats. What did he use? He told them his personal testimony of how Jesus Christ had entered his life, and changed him.

The results are not always going to be as we wish them to be. But Paul knew that the best chance for common ground and further discussion lay not in his vast understanding of doctrine. Rather, it lay in his own little story, in his own words, using his own emotions to relate with the audience before him. Specifically, the best chance lay in grace.

Paul was able to relate to his audience through voicing his story with emotion. That word, “relate”, what does it mean? It is a root word for “relationship”. If we want to form a relationship, we have to relate with those who are lost. God’s grace relates with us every day, by meeting us right where we are at. Jesus didn’t shout the gospel from heaven. He came here, to earth, so He could relate with us. So it is with our own testimony, or story, no matter how small or large it is. If we want to introduce a person to Jesus, then we must introduce them to us, to our lives, to our story. We must be willing to listen to theirs, and willing to tell ours.

Rob is a guy who worked hard all of his life, battling to break addictions to every sort of drug one could imagine. If it wasn’t cocaine, it was heroine. If not heroine, then weed. No matter what he tried, he couldn’t stay clean. He lost his wife, his children, his house, his job, and his hope. Rob wanted to die right up until he met a man who knew Jesus Christ. That man’s name was Jonathon. Jonathon had met Rob in a bowling alley, of all places. Jonathon loved bowling, and Rob loved drinking shots of hard liquor with his friends at the bowling alley Jonathon regularly went to.

The night they met, Rob was in the bathroom, vomiting up the liquor he had consumed, so he could go back out for more. That was when he met Jonathon. He felt a hand on his shoulder as he was sobbing from the pain in his belly, and his heart. Jonathan helped Rob up, and walked him out to his car. He proceeded to drive Rob to his own home, half-carrying him inside, and layed him down in his bed. What an introduction!

The next morning, when Rob woke up, it took him a moment to remember how he came to be in this strange house. But when he walked into the kitchen, he saw Jonathon, and he remembered everything. The two of them sat down to coffee, and talked for hours. Jonathon listened as Rob told him first of how the world had treated him so badly, how everything he had lost was someone else’s fault, and how all he really wanted to do was die. The more Jonathon listened, the more Rob opened up. Soon, Rob was telling Jonathon about his drug problems, and how he couldn’t seem to stay to clean. He was two weeks away from homelessness, and he knew it. He felt hopeless, and he didn’t know what to do.

Thank God Jonathon did. He could have told Rob all about sin, all about the bible, and how man isn’t supposed to be addicted to anything. He could have preached to Rob about the evils of drugs, and how of course, since Rob didn’t know Jesus, his life was destined to be a mess. Jonathon did none of that.

He made another pot of coffee, sat down, and proceeded to tell Rob his own story, a story that wasn’t all that different from Rob’s. He told Rob about having lost his oldest son in a car accident because he had been drinking. He told him how his wife had left him because of it. He told him how his other two sons wouldn’t even speak to him anymore. He spoke about the night he tried to take his life with a gun, how the gun had jammed when he pulled the trigger, and how he had wept that night, asking Jesus to save him.

There, Jonathon stopped. Silence ensued, for about five minutes, as Jonathon wiped his eyes dry of tears, and Rob looked first at the man who had cried before him, and then around him. First, he looked at the immaculate kitchen, next his eyes caught sight of a bowl of apples on the counter. He looked at Jonathon again, and then he saw one single, large, empty bottle of wine sitting alone on a shelf above his sink. Jonathon watched as Rob stared at that bottle, wondering what he was thinking. Rob broke the silence by asking Jonathon why he kept an empty bottle of wine on his shelf. “Because it reminds me of you.” Jonathon answered. Rob looked quizzically at him for a moment, until Jon explained what he meant.

He told Rob that seeing the empty bottle every morning reminded him of where he came from, of all the people who had been hurt, and of the Lord’s amazing grace despite all that he had done wrong in his life because of that bottle. He told him how Christ had changed his life from the moment he had asked Him into his heart. He told Rob through fresh tears how many times he had clutched that bottle, desperately wanting a drink, and desperately holding onto Jesus, believing Jesus would pull him through to the next day. Rob began to weep, as he listened. When Jonathon finished his story, Rob was ready to ask Jesus to save him. He was broken, despairing, and without a job, or a hope in the world. The last thing he needed was someone preaching at him. What he needed was exactly what God provided for him, the grace of Jonathon’s story, which so closely matched his own.

This is his testimony, using bits of his life, memories of wrongs that he had done, recounting the feelings of hopelessness and confusion. And finally, Jonathon. Jonathon’s story is now part of Rob’s story, forever, because a little bit of yeast works through the entire batch of dough.

But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverance.

1 Peter 3:15