Grace

At weekend services this week at my church we sang a new song called All I have is Christ. In it there is a line that reads, "You bore the wrath reserved for me, Now all I know is grace." That stuck in my head and it got me to thinking, is that how I view the cross? Is that how most Christians view it.

See if this sounds familiar. My boss and I are talking one day and some how church was brought up. She then asked me a question that struck me as odd. She told me how some Sunday mornings she will take her two girls up to church and drop them off with their aunt and then go back home to do yard work or house work, and how her grandmother told her and her sister when they were kids that God would "get" them for such things. She asked me if I thought God would get her. I didn't know how to respond then, and I said I hoped not because I don't go to church every weekend. I know this is silly but the point is, do we know that God is not out to get us anymore (we being those who are in Christ)? The line from that song is the best explanation I have seen of what the cross of Christ accomplished for us, what Romans 8:1 means, that there is now no condemnation for those in Christ.

Consider this quote from John Piper during a sermon on Romans 8:1:"What Paul is saying is that all of God's condemning wrath and all of his omnipotent opposition to us in our sin has been replaced by almighty mercy and omnipotent assistance. In other words, if you are in Christ Jesus all of God's action toward you is almighty mercy and omnipotent assistance. It is not mixed. It is not as though some days he is against you with wrath - and those days are bad days - while other days he is for you with love - and those days are good days."

Now All we know is Grace. Nothing you receive from God is punishment or wrath. It may well be discipline but that is the love and mercy of God (Hebrews 12:6). Even the natural consequences of our sin are not the wrath of God, but the reproof of a father who wants to know that in him only there is joy. It is like a parent who has told their child over and over again that the stove is hot. Sometimes the kid just has to get burned to learn that lesson. This is not the wrath of the parents but something they deem necessary for the kid to get it.But what practical implications does this have for us? That is too big a question for me to tackle, other than to say I want to build my life on this truth. To say all of God's actions toward us are mercy and grace makes things like cancer and death and divorce and wayward children hard to explain, but are they any easier to explain as God's punishment to the believer? Paul in 2 Corinthians 12 tells us how he knew the hard realities of God's grace through suffering. He says, "...there was given me a thorn in the flesh...Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'" My grace is sufficient God says. Isn't that the purpose behind suffering, to make us depend on Jesus for our strength? That surely is grace.