No matter where you are grace is right in front of you.
There are days when I struggle just to acknowledge the sovereignty of God over everything. I was having one of those days a couple of weeks ago. In fact it had stretched out from being one of those days to being one of those weeks. I was spiritually coasting and I was needing to get my eyes and my heart back on Jesus. One evening later that week I was spending time with one of my brothers in the Lord and he said something that has stuck with me everyday since then. He said something to the effect of “receive the grace that is in front of you.”
Normally a comment like that would slip right by, but the Holy Spirit used the comment and the giver of the comment to teach me two very important things:
1. I need to spend time with my brothers and sisters in Christ as often as possible. This goes way beyond seeing them at a church service. I mean living life together so that I get this kind of gospel encouragement daily. This will keep me from being led away by my own deceitful heart (Hebrews 3:12-14).
2. No matter where I am and what I have done, grace is always right in front of me and it is greater than my sin. I don’t know about you but there are days at work when I have blown it. I have not used my time wisely or done my work as unto the Lord. Maybe I have had a lustful thought or just have been selfish and prideful. On days like that I just want a do-over. Instead of a do-over, Jesus is standing there holding out His arms as if to say, “If you will forsake your sin I will heal you and give you joy” (I John 1:9).
There is so much hope in knowing that Jesus will always be there for me. That He is reaching out to me through my brothers and sisters in Christ. That His grace is ever before me if I would but leave my sin behind and come to Him empty handed to be filled. That’s grace. That’s worship. That’s good.
God used this post to make two important connections for me.
1. When I feel that I am not experiencing Gods grace it could mean that have a practical life sharing problem with the believers in my congregation. Consider this passage from 1John chapter 1:
9 Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.
10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling.
11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
There is the direct connection in this passage to our walk with God and our fellowship with believers. Therefore our experience of grace is as much, if not more, a group display of grace to one another as it is from God to you or I separately.
2. There is a connection
2. There is a connection between sharing our lives and confession to one another that is so important to experiencing grace. In the act confession to brothers and sisters we are practice telling God that we are forsaking our sin. This directly connects back to the passage in 1 John 1.
6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
Right behind and in the context of community John talks about the importance of confession. This is no accident on John’s part. Our sin affects our fellow believers and experiencing God’s grace is amplified by forsaking our sins with our close brothers and sisters. This is experiencing God’s grace.
The passage I quoted in the first post is from 1John 2.