Brown's Daily Word 10-25-07

Good Morning,
This morning I watched and listened to a music video of the hymn" Amazing Grace". It was amazing and stirring. Grace is the defining element of the Christian faith. Several years ago a symposium was held in Britain on comparative religions, with scholars coming from all around the world. They began to debate whether or not there was any belief which was unique to the Christian faith. Was there anything there which was not taught by the other great world religions? They discussed doctrines like the incarnation and the resurrection. But other religions spoke of gods appearing in human form and accounts of people returning after death, though they usually spoke of it in terms of reincarnation. C. S. Lewis wandered into the room as the debate was in full heat. He asked what all the arguing was about and was told that they were trying to discover if there was anything that was taught in Christianity that was not taught by other world religions. Lewis replied, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.” There was some discussion about his remark, but finally the other scholars had to agree.
The idea that God’s love comes to us freely, without any strings attached and asking nothing in return, seemed to go against what was taught in all the other man-made religions of the world. The Buddhist’s eight-fold path was a religious walk based solely on the individual’s performance. Likewise, the Hindu doctrine of karma with its successive phases which determine a person’s destiny was based on certain things a person accomplished. The Muslim’s have the code of the law which must be followed precisely in order to enter into paradise. All of these are ways which a person must work to earn approval. Christianity alone makes God’s love and acceptance something which is offered to undeserving human beings without cost or condition. Indeed, it makes clear that it cannot be earned, it comes as a free gift.

The Bible says, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:6_9). All the other religions with their gods and goddesses do count people’s sins against them. Reconciliation is a difficult, if not impossible, climb for them. But Christians understand that the true God of heaven is one who is full of compassion and mercy. . God’s love and forgiveness cannot be earned — it comes as a free gift.
Philip Yancey, in his book "What’s So Amazing About Grace?", tells the following story: “A vagrant lives near the Fulton Fish Market on the lower east side of Manhattan. The slimy smell of fish carcasses and entrails nearly overpowers him, and he hates the trucks that noisily arrive before sunrise. But midtown gets crowded, and the cops harass him there. Down by the wharves nobody bothers with a grizzled man who keeps to himself and sleeps on a loading dock behind a Dumpster.
“Early one morning when the workers are slinging eel and halibut off the trucks, yelling to each other in Italian, the vagrant rouses himself and pokes through the dumpsters behind the tourist restaurants. An early start guarantees good pickings: last night’s uneaten garlic bread and French fries, nibbled pizza, a wedge of cheesecake. He eats what he can stomach and stuffs the rest in a brown paper sack. The bottles and cans he stashes in plastic bags in his rusty shopping cart.
“The morning sun, pale through harbor fog, finally makes it over the buildings by the wharf. When he sees the ticket from last week’s lottery lying in a pile of wilted lettuce, he almost lets it go. But by force of habit he picks it up and jams it in his pocket. In the old days, when luck was better, he used to buy one ticket a week, never more. It’s past noon when he remembers the ticket stub and holds it up to the newspaper box to compare the numbers. Three numbers match, the fourth, the fifth - all seven! It can’t be true. Things like that don’t happen to him. Bums don’t win the New York Lottery.
“But it is true. Later that day he is squinting into the bright lights as television crews present the newest media darling, the unshaven, baggy pants vagrant who will receive $243,000 per year for the next twenty years. A chic-looking woman wearing a leather miniskirt shoves a microphone in his face and asks, “How do you feel?” He stares back dazed, and catches a whiff of her perfume. It has been a long time, a very long time, since anyone has asked him that question.
“He feels like a man who has been to the edge of starvation and back, and is beginning to fathom that he’ll never feel hunger again.”
What did that beggar to do deserve receiving several million dollars? Absolutely nothing! He had not even bought the winning ticket. All he did was pick it up and cash it in to receive his prize. Someone else had thrown it away as though it was useless, but he saw its potential worth. He had not worked for a long time. He did not earn the money. The check was given to him as a free gift, without conditions. He did not have a job or an education. He did not have to do anything but accept the check.
Having a relationship with God does not depend on how well we do or how perfect we are. It is based solely on the mercy and grace of God. This is good news for us who are failures. We read in the book of Titus: “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:4-5). Here is the unique message of the Christian faith. As it says in 2 Corinthians: “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19). This frees us from guilt and legalistic perfectionism. We understand that we can never be perfect and that our relationship with God is based solely on grace. The Bible says, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4-5).
Phil Yancey writes, “Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more.... And grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less.” The guilt and condemnation is gone and a settled peace comes upon our hearts as we realize we don’t have to do anything to gain God’s acceptance — we already have it. Our relationship with God is not based on how good we are, but on the character of a gracious and forgiving God who loves us more than we can ever understand.
Grace inspires us to no longer live in sin. This grace changes us.
Augustine said, “Who can be good, if not made so by loving? . . . Love God and do as you please.” He could say that because he knew that when you love God, what pleases you will be what pleases God. Grace has put us in contact with the love of God and love has changed us.
If we were to scrutinize the thoughts, decisions and actions of our life on any given day, we would find that even the best of them would be filled with selfish purposes and wrong motivations. We never get to the place where we no longer need the grace of our Lord Saviour Jesus Christ.
In Christ,
Brown



In Christ alone my hope is found;
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This cornerstone, this solid ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, my all in all—
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone, Who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save.
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied;
For ev'ry sin on Him was laid—
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain;
Then bursting forth in glorious day,
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory,
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me;
For I am His and He is mine—
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow'r of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow'r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow'r of Christ I'll stand.