Thoughts on Grace

Today, I am sharing some quotes on the topic of grace that I included in my Sunday School class on Sunday.  Enjoy meditating on these thoughts from various authors!

Jesus (Luke 15) is striking at the heart of the problem we have with grace: we don’t like it. It seems unfair, but in reality it is perfectly fair. God is gracious to all. It smacks against our performance-based-acceptance narrative. (James Bryan Smith in Good and Beautiful God)

Real life is long on law and short on grace—the demands never stop, the failures pile up, and fear sets in. Life requires many things from us—a stable marriage, successful children, a certain quality of life. Anyone living inside the guilt, anxiety, and uncertainty of daily life knows that the weight of life is heavy. We are all in need of some relief.

Bestselling author Tullian Tchividjian is convinced our exhausted world needs a fresh encounter with God's inexhaustible grace—His one-way love. Sadly, however, Christianity is perceived as being a vehicle for good behavior and clean living—and the judgments that result from them—rather than the only recourse for those who have failed over and over and over again. Tchividjian convincingly shows that Christianity is not about good people getting better. If anything, it is good news for bad people coping with their failure to be good.  

In this "manifesto," Tchividjian calls the church back to the heart of the Christian faith—grace. It is time for us to abandon our play-it-safe religion, and to get drunk on grace. Two hundred-proof, unflinching grace. It’s shocking and scary, unnatural and undomesticated … but it is also the only thing that can set us free and light the church—and the world—on fire. (Tullian Tchvidjian from One Way Love)

That’s what we must do with the gospel of the grace of God. We must personally appropriate it, making it more and more central to everything we see, think, and feel.  That is how we grow spiritually in wisdom, love, joy, and peace. (Tim Keller in Prodigal God)

There is nothing more powerful in this world than a Christian rightly understanding the grace of God and applying that grace to all facets of life. (Mark Driscoll in Who Do You Think You Are?)

Grace is unmerited favor or a kindly disposition that leads to acts of kindness. . .The center of the Bible, and the center of Christianity, is found in the grace of God. . .Grace is getting what you don’t deserve and not getting what you do deserve. . .Religion tries to domesticate grace. . .His choice to give grace does not hinge on a person’s actions or how he responds—it depends purely on himself. . .The ultimate expression of the grace of God is found in Jesus Christ. . .A good short definition of grace is “one way love.” (Justin Holcomb from On the Grace of God)

The keyword for fear and guilt is “do” . . .The keyword for grace is “done”. . .Fans are all about the “do”, but followers celebrate the “done.” (Kyle Idleman in Not A Fan)

So, how then do we compel true, heart-centered change, both in ourselves and others? We tell the story of grace. . .The grace of God extended to us at the cross should blow our minds. (J.D. Greear in Gospel)

My big concern for us as a church is not that we would over-preach grace because that’s impossible. If we had all the words in every language on earth, you wouldn’t be able to preach enough the grace and mercy of God found in Jesus Christ. (Matt Chandler from online sermon)