Grace.
And as you are about to discover Grace plays a larger role than you imagine..
The story of Grace is your story.
But God gives it to us anyway because he loves us unconditionally.
It can\'t be qualified.
We can\'t earn it.
We don\'t deserve it.
But that\'s the beauty and the truth of grace.
Even now as you think about grace, there might be a little voice in your head whispering, It can\'t be that easy What about obedience? What about disobedience? What about repeated misbehavior? What about bad habits? What about justice? What about repentance? It\'s this tension that makes Grace so slippery.
The only group he attacked relentlessly was graceless religious leaders.
The odd thing is that when you read the New Testament, the only thing Jesus stood against consistently was graceless religion.
The gravitational pull is always toward graceless religion.
From the beginning, the church has had an uneasy relationship with grace. --Andy Stanley We find in the pages of Scripture that the stories found there often mirror our own stories, and that we too need the very thing we do not deserve: the Grace of God.
This struggle is not new; it has been going on since the beginning.
But when correctly applied, it seems to solve just about everything.
When it is required of us, it is often disturbing.
When we are on the receiving end, Grace is refreshing.
That struggle is the context for both.
It\'s the struggle that reminds us that Grace is bigger than compassion or forgiveness.
It\'s this struggle that makes Grace more story than doctrine.
Therein is the struggle, the struggle for grace.
It\'s the very thing we are hesitant to extend when we are confronted with the guilt of others--especially when their guilt has robbed us of something we consider valuable.
It\'s what we crave most when our guilt is exposed.
Grace
