I’m a recovering legalist. I guess I’ll always be in recovery. Raised in a congregation that was a bizarre mixture of wonderful people and deep legalistic tendencies, I grew up seeing God as difficult to please, scary, capricious and distant. While I heard the words “grace,” “faith,” and “forgiveness” I didn’t feel the weight of any of them. My salvation depended on me.
Our church’s favorite verse: “. . . continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling” Phil 2:12. So for 18 years, I was fed a constant diet of fear and trembling. Then, several things happened as I went off to college at Oklahoma Christian University.
1) I started listening to Christian music. The music of Christian artists (Rich Mullins, Cheri Keaggy, Amy Grant, etc.) ministered to my dry soul in fresh and life-giving ways.
2) I started reading the Bible for myself. Instead of being spoon-fed verses that supported one doctrinal position, I read and meditated on large chunks of text.
3) I met and befriended Christians who were joyful. Being a follower of Jesus wasn’t a drudgery for these Christians, it was a privilege. Love and happiness exuded from their lives.
This Sunday, I’ll be starting a 5 week preaching series called “What’s so Amazing about Grace?”. There are so many wounded Christians who haven’t allowed themselves to be loved, fully loved, by our generous Father and I can’t wait to share the message of GRACE that is at the very center of our faith.
With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. Acts 4:33
Recommended reading. . .
What's so Amazing about Grace by Phillip Yancey (great images of grace)
Transforming Grace by Jerry Bridges (a good summary of the biblical theology of grace)
Galatians (a congregation that struggled to live fully in the grace and freedom of Christ)
Monday, June 15, 2009
What's so Amazing about Grace?
Posted by Gordon Dabbs at 10:13 AM
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5 comments:
My mom speaks alot about the church of 50 years ago and how grace wasn't really talk about very much. Grace and the Holy Spirit were kind of left out in favor of "work your way to heaven" and "we have the holy spirit, but not the same one they did back then" theology. I'm very interested to hear your thoughts about this subject.
JP, I think I know some people who still go to that church today : ( But I'm changing and your generation is different and my sons are learning grace differently. Yeah!
Gordon, I was just getting ready to send an e-mail about my thoughts on sharing the moments where we have been given grace. Now that I found this site I guess parts of it would be appropriate here but it's long...
Am I too late to add I did not mean our church?! I'm sorry if I offended anyone.
Along with learning how grace is given in the atrocities of life, could we also hear stories or "get a picture" of how people (today) have received grace in small ways and given grace in small ways such as the daily moments of Romans 12? I seem to more easily realize how God wants me to act in the "big" events, but don't even think at all when I am faced with daily laying down what I want to do for what He wants.
I'm not sending that long letter but I do still have questions and would like to throw some ideas out to see if my line of thinking is correct or way off base because I do not understand all the aspects of that scripture.
Thanks!
Fire away.
Overwhelmed and overflowing with the mercy and favor we've received from God, we become grace distributors to those around us.
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