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| (Nairobi, Kenya) |
My church family is grace-saturated. I see this every week, in small and big ways. I am certain much more grace activity happens behinds the scenes, where only God sees. I constantly view the living out of mercy's triumph over judgment. How thankful I am that we are named "Redeemer." Redemptive, bondage-breaking activity is happening all around me.
I like what Max Lucado says about this in a CT interview. He is asked: What are some signs that a church is really living in grace and not by law?
Max responds:
"The spontaneous worship level of the church. Are people genuinely happy when they're there? I have a friend who says, "You can measure a husband by the face of his wife." And I think you can measure the amount of grace by the face of the church, just by their joy level. There's an energy. There's a simple contagious happiness there.
I think another outgrowth of grace is generosity. Jesus tells the parable of the man who was forgiven much and then demanded that the guy who owed him just a couple hundred bucks pay up. I think that's a picture of when grace did not work. This man thought he had worked the system instead of receiving grace. You counter that with the story of Zacchaeus; Jesus walked in his front door and greed walked out the back door; he wanted to give away half of what he owned. There's a picture of grace. It may be idealistic, but I really think that if we made grace a regular part of the church diet, we'd have happier people who are cheerful givers—and we wouldn't have to have so many campaigns on giving money."
