Grace Is Transformative

This is the fourth in a series of posts filling in the blank to “Grace is ____.”

Grace is unnatural
counterfeited
intimate
transformative.

Grace is transformative because…

…grace sets you free. Like with the adulterous woman in John 8:2-11, grace frees you from your past. It sets you free from guilt. It cancels your debts. It liberates you from expectations. It frees you from judgment.

…grace heals. Grace draws out the poison of anger, regret, hate, and sorrow. Because of this grace makes it possible for relationships that had been mortally wounded to be heal and begin to grow again like in the reconciliation between Joseph and his brothers in Genesis 50:15-21.

…grace changes your heart. Grace can accomplish what years of “do’s and don’ts” cannot. Grace moves in your heart to make you want to do the right thing. Just look at the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10.

…grace changes how we see things. It changes our perspective. When God told Jonah to go and preach in Nineveh he refused because all he saw there was sin and evil and enemies of his people. God helped him to see them as He saw them, as lost and in need of compassion because they could not tell their right hand from their left (Jonah 4:10).

…grace gives life. The greatest truth of this is the life that God’s saving grace brings. Romans 5:20-21 (NIV), The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. But grace given by you and me brings life too. Proverbs 18:21 (NIV) says, the tongue has the power of life and death, and Proverbs 15:4 (NIV) says, the soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit. When we give the gift of grace to someone we are speaking life into them.

…grace meets our deepest need: love. We are all like the Samaritan woman Jesus met in John 4:1-42. We all fail. We all fall. We fracture others. We get fractured ourselves. Over and over again. There comes a point when we realize that no amount of self-help, positive thinking, and hard work on our part changes these realities. Everyone is broken, the only difference is in the varying degrees in which we find ourselves. The more broken you realize you are, the more the world, the flesh, and the devil tell us that we are not only unable to love, but that we are unlovable. The only antidote for this cancer of shame is love. Grace is love in its most sacrificial and costly form. It is one way love. It is love that is not given as a reward for good behavior, good decisions, or being a good example but in spite of not being or exhibiting any of those things. It is love that is not driven by expectations, weights, or measures. It is love given simply because it is chosen to be given, it is love that rushes into our bruised and broken souls and eradicates the cancer of shame.

Grace transforms you. It does not leave you the same.

How has grace transformed you?