By the Way: What grace is and what it is not
By Weston Lundgren on September 21, 2019.
With the federal election just around the corner, it seems like there is an awful lot to be anxious about. There’s a trade war with China. Our climate is changing. The energy sector is under attack. It should be no surprise then that a recent study found that almost half of Canadians struggle with anxiety. Often times though, the things that cause us to struggle with anxiety are more personal. You or a loved one may deal with anxiety built on seemingly little things like not being able to pay the bills, making mistakes in difficult social situations or simply not being accepted because of who you are. I’ve found the best solution for anxiety in my own life is grace. Let me explain what grace is and what it is not. Grace isn’t a free pass that we give to ourselves and others to keep making the same mistakes. In fact, like forgiveness grace is always intentional. Basically grace is an undeserved invitation to continue building a healthy relationship. I think the longer answer is best understood by Jesus’s example. It may seem mundane, but Jesus’s grace was demonstrated in a radical way through who he ate with, recorded in Mark 2:15-17 (NLT). Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.) But when the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with such scum?” When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor-sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” These religious teachers taught repentance and forgiveness as a matter of law. The problem was that these “disreputable sinners” didn’t fit in the pharisees worldview. The path to forgiveness started with them agreeing with the Pharisees, repenting and changing their behaviors. Then there could be a relationship. Jesus’s grace turned forgiveness on its head! He tells us that it’s okay to be broken but it’s not OK to stay that way. Focusing on relationship rather than regulation means that Jesus engages with real people like you and me. The only requirement is that we be honest about who we are and accept who Jesus is. The invitation for relationship comes first, repentance flows out of honest humility and the resulting relationship changes hearts. We all need grace like this in our lives, it breaks the power that shame guilt and even anxiety can hold over us. Sharing this grace with other people is a powerful reminder that God is just the spiritual doctor we need. Those of us who struggle with anxiety can find relief knowing that we can be accepted as we are, and having found the spiritual doctor we’ve known we needed we can even thrive knowing that God isn’t finished with us yet. Pastor Weston Lundgren is pastor at GracePointe Community Church. 9-8
