Grace On The Witness Stand

We have put grace under suspicion. 

We have placed it on the witness stand to testify in defense of itself. We have placed a crown of thorns upon its head and mocked it with our own righteousness. We have called as our witnesses  those who have misused it, misunderstood it, and maligned it as proofs of its dubiousness. We prosecute God by His own word, implying that His grace is insufficient when we draw people to put faith in our own teachings rather than drawing them to deeper faith in Jesus Christ. 

Prophecy of Messiah said that the light would shine in the darkness, and there is no greater darkness than the human heart. No greater illusions dwell in any realm than that of our own understanding. We are sick beyond cure, yet God gave us the cure by being born a man who lived a sinless life, and who died to impute that sinlessness to us through His atoning blood. There is no other righteousness to be found among mankind, than that of God’s own Son— Jesus the Nazarene. 

After all these years of being a Christian, of journeying and learning and teaching and seeking, I sat on the barn steps yesterday and gazed out this window with tears streaming down my face and said, “I accept Your righteousness, because I have none. I accept Your grace, because I need it.” May I never place a crown of thorns upon the head of grace and mock it with my own notion of righteousness. 

In this time of testing of hearts, may we remember that our hearts are purified not by how much we get right, but by trusting in and relying upon the only One who got it right. 

(2 Tim 1:9,10) He has saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but by His own purpose and by the grace He granted us in Christ Jesus before time began. And now He has revealed this grace through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has abolished death and illuminated the way to life and immortality through the gospel..

(2 Cor 4:6,7) For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Now we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this surpassingly great power is from God and not from us.

(Luke 1:76-79) And you, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for Him, to give knowledge of salvation to His people, in forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the Dawn will visit us from on high, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace.