Grace and the Building of Boats - Part 3

Grace and What She Says

We needed to leave our old boat. It was too heavy. We couldn’t paddle it anymore. Our kids were being hurt by all the things that were poking them. They were jumping ship. It was leaking as much as we didn't want to admit it. And most of all, as I studied The Book, it wasn't what the Master Builder had in mind at all.

As I have studied more and more about the grace gospel of our Father, I am drawn to her like a bug to a light. She fascinates me. She calls out to me. She even feels dangerous. Can you get too close to Grace? Is She really safe?

Grace says that Jesus paid the whole thing.
Grace says it is not by my disciplines that I am saved.
Grace says that Father loves me, likes me and is even very, very fond of me.
Grace says that if it is by grace it is no longer by works – because if it were, it would no longer be grace.. (Rom 11:6)
Grace says if you look to any law to justify you (make you more OK with God) you have fallen away from grace. (Gal 5:4)
Grace says, in one of her most famous passages that it is by grace we have been saved through faith---and this not from ourselves, it is a gift of God---not of works (the stuff we do) because we would boast and brag about ourselves. (Eph 2:8-9)
Grace is an easy yoke.
She is loving - not judging, forgiving - not holding grudges, freeing - not restricting,
admitting your doubts - yet choosing faith.
She is risky - not safe.
She is relationship - not rules.

Mostly, Grace says, “I’m enough."

Period.

I think it was the central message of Paul to all his churches. They also had boats built to navigate through life. There boats were called “The Law.” But you know, their Law was not much different than what I had built my boat out of. Mostly my boat was Old Testament Law and all it’s rules brought over into the New Covenant (a fancy way of talking about the differences that Jesus came to make) and with a new coat of paint I called it Grace. But it wasn’t.

It was as heavy and cumbersome as The Law. I was just as boastful and proud of what I was doing to be OK with God. Pharisees still paddle their boats around today and I was one.

So I need a new craft. This craft will be made of Grace.

More on that tomorrow in, “Theologically Shopping For a New Boat Called Grace.”