Redefining Grace – Rob Coscia
If you’re one of those I keep seeing that focuses on the
negativity of cities, states, and nations, pointing out all the wrongs that God
must hate, I have a word for you. The dark cloud you keep pointing at isn’t a
judgment from God. It isn’t even directly from the enemy. It’s from you. It’s
the result of your retreat.
When you abandon your post of influencing the city in the
fruit of the Spirit, you remove all the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faith, and hope that God has given to you, and you leave a gap. A gap
you then judge as the sin of others, most of whom are living as best they can
in the absence of a demonstration of something better.
Whether it came from an offense against you, or your own
failure, somewhere along the way you listened to the enemy’s definition of
grace, that it is conditional, limited, and must be earned. That kind of warped
grace makes you insecure. So you protect your religious position by judging
those who have experienced less of God’s presence than you, then punish them by
removing all of yours.
I invite you to let God redefine grace for you. You are so
completely, perfectly, unceasingly loved by your Father. You do not have to
earn it. You don’t have to perform for it. You don’t have act perfectly, or
stress yourself and everyone around you to the breaking point trying. As in
Zechariah 4, cry out “Grace, grace!” over all that you are, including your
past, and all that God wants to be for you.
When you know that Jesus’ love and grace toward you are
unending, they will overflow to your family, your work, your city, your nation.
You’ll remember that it’s not your job to curse the darkness. It’s your joy to
transform it.
“Let your light so shine before others, that they may see
the good things you do, and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matt. 5.16)
from: http://bit.ly/1NaqQzx
