Grace is a Weapon of Liberation

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Grace is a call, a weapon, not from within but from without.  

A firm hand from a loving protector, a Father in Heaven.  

He looks and sees me. He sees my pain; He sees my failure to be who I want to be.  

He doesn’t hate me but holds me up when I stumble.  

He does not give up on me; all I need to do is open my heart, 

and let his grace flow down to the low places.  

He will revive me and heal me. 

This is the season of remembering the Passion of our Lord. We need to remember again who Jesus is, who the Father is, who the Spirit is. We must practice remembering because it is so easy to forget. I feel like I forget who God is all the time. My forgetfulness is the source of my alienation. Yet, God IS a good Father, The Son is a kind Lord, the Spirit is in me to lead me into the way of true living. The challenge is practicing this remembrance.  

In the fog of our daily grind, we can forget this central truth, this one core thing about reality: there is an eternal Trinity who loves us and wants us. God is always calling out in the human heart quiet phrases of reconciliation. He wants us to come home. God has a home cooked meal for us. At His table we remember who we are again: we are His. 

Christ leaves the light on for us, The Kingdom of Heaven is like a banquet for the poor, the lame, the blind, the broken. There is no cover charge; there is no catch. There will not be a pitch for us to buy something we cannot afford. God has already made provision for our needs. The Father has a room for us; this isn’t for us when we die; this is for us right now in order to truly live.  

I can’t follow Jesus without Jesus’ help. I participate, but the fuel for the relationship always starts in God. We are the ones that seek alienation, God is the one who is always seeking reunion with His estranged family.  

My self-understanding is tied to my adoption as a son. The part of me that is deep inside being regenerated by Christ knows this, he hears the Spirit more deeply than the part of me that slogs through the daily grind un-blissfully unaware. The surface of my person must actively work with grace through remembering. The invisible part of me is being renewed though I am not always conscious of it. The part of me that is very much “bodily” needs to immerse myself in the story of Scripture, bathe in it; drink it deeply. It also needs to sit still and know who God is, as well as pouring out my heart to the One who loves me most. These things, in addition to other elements, help that inner person grow in grace and be transformed.  

Yet we often see the Christian life as a performance with metrics and statistics: how many “wins” for Christ did I have today? How many losses? We come at the Christian life like a corporate employee who is scared stupid about being fired instead of children who have been adopted by a good Father.  

Grace is the weapon that can undue this mindset. It is a weapon that we have not because we made the right grades or aced the exam, it is because our relationship to God is completely alien to this way of thinking. God is not a principle at a high school; God is a living flame of love that burns for us. He doesn’t drop a scorpion into our hands when we ask for food, He doesn’t slam the door when we come to His house broken and out of money.  

Lent is the season of remembrance. 

It is the season of recalling the love of God in Christ. 

This is the weapon that heals and delivers.  

 

 

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