Yesterday
afternoon I went for a walk and while I was out it began to rain.
Slowly at first. In fact I came back home a little wet but far from
saturated. Then about ten minutes after I got home, the downpour came! And
the rain came pouring straight down, in sheets, at some points shifting with
the wind.
It
was torrential.
Everything
that was caught in that rainstorm was soaked. There was no way for the dryness
to contend against it. Every part of the earth received what was coming down. It was
full and strong and it influenced every bit of the ground.
This
morning the street outside my front window is clean. It was swept clean by the
power of that water rushing down from the sky. Any plant caught in that liquid
explosion was saturated; even the weeds, making them extremely easy to pull
out.
In
short, everything living that received the rain was affected by it.
That’s
how God's grace works. God doesn't have favorites and God doesn’t coddle. There are no gold
row seats that get you a ringside spot in God's presence. In fact God's word says
something about God's rain falling on the just and the unjust. It seems like a
contradiction, doesn’t it? Why should a just person get as soaked as
someone who isn’t? Because it’s grace.
And God's grace is undeserved and unmerited favor. It’s favor purely for favor’s sake. It’s not determined by outward actions and it’s not always connected with what is going on deep within someone's heart.
In
terms of human understanding God's grace can be illogical, provocative and totally
arbitrary. And there are times when it can seem as if God's grace is wasted on the
wrong people.
But
it never is. That's because God's grace is an invitation to relationship. It’s free. And despite outward appearances, it’s always intentional.
photo credit: www.gracechurchabq.org
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