The Gift of God's Grace

I’ve been hit from all sides lately with a certain message. This message keeps coming at me from sources that are totally unrelated to each other, and each time it's very consistent. When this kind of thing happens, I begin to assume that God is trying to tell me something important. I think many of us have these kinds of experiences, and it can be challenging sometimes to take the leap of faith and assume that these aren’t mere coincidences but that God is being rather overt in 

Dalton Shotwell

His attempt to get your attention and to get you to listen to something important, and to learn it deeply. I’m going through one of those times. And right now, the message is all about the gift of God’s grace. 

Grace meant little to me when I was younger. I would have described it as a word used to illustrate a general smoothness or finesse, something very controlled and efficient. Like a graceful ice skater. I had no real understanding of what it was to extend grace to another person or to experience it. I also didn’t grow up in any church, so the concept of God’s grace never really reached my ears until … well, pretty recently. I feel pretty well familiar with God’s forgiveness (and I’m endlessly grateful for it), but the gift of grace is a relatively new concept to me. And lately, I’ve felt overwhelmed by the message, even pelted by it in a comedic way, like a million snowballs suddenly hitting me from all directions. *splat* “YOU ALREADY HAVE IT, DALTON!!! *splat* ARE YOU LISTENING?!? *splat, splat* STOP *splat* WORRYING ABOUT IT *splat* AND JUST OPEN THE GIFT!!!” says God as He hurls an impossible flurry of metaphoric snowballs.


I’ll share with you a couple of the larger snowballs that have hit me lately. I’ll start with Hebrews 4:16. “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” 

Approaching with confidence - that’s the tough part for me. I genuinely struggle with feeling worthy of this gift. At this point, thanks to the flurry of snowballs, I understand academically that it doesn’t matter whether I feel worthy or not, or if I feel anything at all — the gift remains patiently waiting for me all the same. But to receive it confidently … that’s difficult. 

But then I recently came across a way of looking at this concept that I really liked. This analogy doesn’t emphasize the divinely desired confidence spoken of in Hebrews 4:16, but it does make it easier to relate to how God wants us to approach His gift of grace  and it was a rather timely thing to read as well. The author reflects on the way children approach trick-or-treating: 
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“I flashed back to Halloween and all of those kids charging up to our door, expecting something for free. Not because they thought they deserved it. Because they knew we wanted them to come, hoped they would come - expected them to come for candy. 
Maybe this is a picture of how God wants us to come to Him, too. Anxious to arrive, breathless with a good kind of greed for a grace more generous than we could possibly deserve. And what if He wants us to rush to Him boldly not because of what it says about our worthiness, but what it says about His? Maybe He sees all of us coming from afar off - trolls and witches and angels with missing wings - and He wants us to come more than we ever could. Because we’re beloved. Because He can’t imagine what He’d do without us.”

Sober Mercies, Heather Kopp

​That really resonated with me. It must be tough (and rather lonely) to be God with so many hesitant and needlessly self-defeating children like me who find all kinds of ways to convince ourselves that we don’t deserve to receive the candy because our costume looks bad or some other stupid reason. The Bible is pretty clear - He doesn’t care how our costumes look, He just wants to hand out a Snickers. Not sure which passage that is exactly, probably from the Book of Treats or something. But the point is that He already paid for them, He bought them specifically for us, and we need only to knock on His door and receive them. Like His Grace. 

And perhaps I was primed to hear this message from that author because of a sermon we heard at our very own church just a couple of weeks ago from our wonderful guest pastor, Howard Jones. Howard gave a poignant sermon and delivered it with precision. He said many things worth repeating (a theme he repeated, repetitively, and with good effect), but at one point, Howard hit me right in the ear with another considerable snowball by using another holiday phenomenon to illustrate the lesson that God seems to be trying to teach me right now. Howard said the following, verbatim (I know, because I transcribed this myself):
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“To be of value to us, to have a positive impact on our lives, a gift has to be received. Christmas presents and birthday presents do not enrich our lives just sitting wrapped up under a tree or on a table. They have to be opened to be enjoyed. It is the same with the gift of grace. When we accept that gift, when we receive it, it changes our lives. It changes our lives in ways more wonderful than we can imagine.

It does because it creates or restores our relationship with God. Some of us may not have yet accepted the gift of God's grace, God's love, and forgiveness. And for those of us who haven't, the reason often is that we do not love and do not forgive ourselves. We don't love qualities about us, don't even like them. We don't forgive ourselves for some of the mistakes we've made. And since we do not love and forgive ourselves, we assume God does not love and forgive us. 

The Bible tells us we are wrong. The Bible makes it clear God does love and forgives us. Since God loves and forgives us, the issue is whether or not we accept God's love and forgiveness. The issue is whether or not we accept the gift of grace. When we accept that gift, it enables us to move toward reaching our potential. None of us deserves to be loved by God. We do not have to deserve it. We can't deserve it. Loving us, God, through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, has given us a gift. A gift the Bible calls grace. It is a gift we have only to receive.”

*SPLAT*

Amen. Thanks, Howard. You’ve got quite an arm. And I think Howard would agree that it bears repeating Hebrews 4:16:

“Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” 

In His grace,
Dalton