I am still unsure of how to accurately portray all of my thoughts on this. I fear this post may be just a bunch of disjointed thoughts, but here it goes:
"Grace is undeserved favor"
"Grace is getting something that you don't deserve"
Both of those definitions have been ingrained in my head from my years growing up in the Awana club program at church and going to Christian highschool and Christian college.
I thought I understand what that little 5 letter word meant. But my world began to be "rocked" sometime last fall/winter when I started hearing more and more about Grace from different areas of my Christian "circles"...books, radio, sermons, etc. It seemed to be a very popular topic as everyone was talking about it. I wondered what the big deal was b/c it wasn't like that word was hard to define. I knew the definition. I knew that "mercy" is when God withheld the punishment (going to Hell when I die) that I deserve for my sin and that "grace" is when God gave me Heaven for all of eternity instead. Easy. Explained. Done. So what was the big deal? What was I missing?
I heard about a book study being led by a mutual friend. A group of ladies from her church was going to read "Grace for the Good Girl" and meet every week to discuss it. I had heard the title in passing from a couple of different social media sites. I googled it and it sounded like a book that I might have written myself had I ever been able to write a book! Ha!
I definitely grew up trying to be "good girl" to a certain degree. I knew that I did not need to "try" to get to Heaven by being good. But the type of church and school I grew up in had a lot of rules. I liked rules...well, maybe not every rule. But rules are something this 'Type-A personality' girl thrives on. To me, rules are easier. Give me a list, I will follow it to the "t" and get the desired result. A good Christian girls does a, b, and c...ok, then I'll do a, b, and c and that will make me a good Christian girl.
But while I knew deep down that I did not have to do good things in order to get to Heaven (that was something that Catholics did, not us "Christians"), I was trained to believe that God would be happy if I was good and He would be sad if I was bad. So, I knew that I would go to Heaven no matter what b/c I had admitted that I was a sinner and could not get to Heaven by doing "good things". Bur rather, I deserved punishment for my "bad things". And I believed that Jesus died on the cross as the punishment that I deserved for my sin. But then, I still felt like I had to live by certain rules to please God b/c he sent His Son, Jesus to die for my punishment so I could go to Heaven instead of going to Hell where I deserved to go.
And here is where I am still somewhat conflicted in my thoughts b/c to a certain degree, I should be living in such a way that will glorify God b/c He did create me and He did send his Son to die for me. But at the same time, I do not have to "do" anything to get to Heaven. I used to think that the places where the Bible states, "If you love me, you will keep my commands" meant that my motivation for keeping God's laws was to show that I loved God. But now I am realizing through many sermons I have listened to and many books I have read that a verse like I John 5:2 is simply stating a fact. Those who love God will keep on keeping His commands. It is not a way to show whether or not we love Jesus.
Queue the 2nd book that really, really rocked my world..."Give Them Grace"...wow!! I feel like I don't even want to speak to my kids anymore without first really evaluating what I am about to say. It comes so naturally for me to say, "Be kind. That will make Jesus happy". That's what I was told growing up. That's what I default to saying w/o even realizing it! Don't get me wrong, my parents did they best they knew how when raising me. I am not saying that I was ruined by this at all. It's just a totally different way of looking at everything in your life...so much more to say about this book...but...
to be continued...
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