Friday December 21, 2018

 

No other notion of God has impacted my life as profoundly as grace. Grace is God’s biggest and best idea. It is God loving us unconditionally, rescuing us, justifying us, and rewarding us extravagantly even though we have not earned or deserve any of this. I will never get tired of studying, analyzing, admiring, or embracing God’s grace. It is my favorite subject matter and nothing else compares. God’s grace has the potential to bring out the very best in me but it also has the potential to shine the light on the hypocrisy in me. I say hypocrisy because on the one side I love being the recipient of grace but on the other side, I do not like dispensing it. However, the truth is that for anyone who has been the recipient of God’s grace, there is only one appropriate response, to give by grace what we have received by grace.

 

“Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?” – Mathew 18:33 NIV

 

In the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant, Jesus tells the story of a poor man who somehow found himself indebted to his master for millions of dollars. His debt was so large that even if he worked his entire life and paid 100% of his income towards the debt, he still would not be able to pay it in full. One day the master summoned the servant and told him that it was time to settle the debt. Obviously the man was unable to settle his account therefore the master ordered that the servant, his wife, and his children be sold so that he could recover some of the money due. Upon hearing this, the servant dropped to his knees and begged his master to give him more time to make good on his debt. The master felt pity for the servant and knowing that the servant would never be able to pay off his debt, the master had to make one, of two choices: recover part of the debt by selling the servant and his family, or extend grace and cancel the debt. The master chose to extend grace.

 

As the servant departed he ran across a man who owed him a small amount of money. He grabbed the man by the neck and demanded he pay up. The man fell to his knees and begged the servant for a little more time. In this man’s case, it is plausible to believe that he would have the ability to make a payment within a few days or weeks. The servant however had no mercy for the man and had him arrested and thrown into jail. Some of the other servants who were nearby saw what happened and reported the incident to the servant’s master. When the master heard what had happened, infuriated he summoned the servant and said to him: “Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant”, just as I had mercy on you? Then the master had the servant turned over to the jailer to be tortured until the servant could come up with the money to pay his debt.

 

The proper and only response to grace is to give by grace what we have received by grace.