Running with Grace

One of the themes of my 2008 December holiday was learning that we can run with the grace that God has given us in Christ Jesus our Lord. I have been a Christian for almost 5 years and it was only in the last year that I truly came to an understanding of what it means to receive grace from God, that we are redeemed from the curse of the law and that we do not, and definitely can’t, work our own righteousness in the face of a holy God. This has set me free to love God and to treasure Christ through whom I can enter the Most Holy Place and sit at the feet of my Father.
What do I mean when I say “Running with Grace?” The concept was formed for me this holiday after reading Sally Clarkson’s book The Mom Walk. This book truly encouraged me as a mother and a wife and mostly as a child of God. She touches such relevant areas of life. She describes many of her family’s daily experiences and adventures and what one comes to see is a family that has taken hold of the full assurance and acceptance of Christ and is running with it in order to do great things for God’s kingdom. They know they are not perfect, but they do not wallow in self-pity. Rather they accept that Christ has paid the full price for every sin we have done and will ever do. They no that, in God’s covenant of grace, there is a place for failure. After all, God “knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14). At the same time, they strive to be godly and wholeheartedly devoted to Christ in every aspect of their lives.
Through this book and this idea of running with the grace that God has provided us, I have come to understand the parable of the tenants. Before understanding grace, I have always been a closet one-talent servant. I was too afraid to do anything, because I didn’t know God as a loving and rewarding Father and Master. I only could see the extent to which I failed and thought that He must be angry with me more often than not. Now that I understand the extent of God’s grace, however, I see that He wants to reward us; He wants us to enter into His joy. He looks at us with pleasure as we are in Christ, his dear Son. We already have the righteousness of Christ. The result of this assurance is the desire to please God and to work for His kingdom, as the servants with the five and ten talents respectively did.
It is so easy for us to focus on our sins and weaknesses only. This actually paralyses our work for the kingdom. But when we are humble enough to accept that we are weak and not to stop there but to look at God’s all-sufficient provision in Christ and to accept it and live in praise and thanksgiving of it, then we can do great things (by this I mean serving our families, reaching our children’s hearts for Christ, serving in our church-family, reaching the lost) for God.
Some other verses from Scripture which confirmed this for me was Isaiah 40 verse 30-31:
Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
These verses speak the new covenant that Jesus established and shows that in this covenant of grace we will be able to move up and to move forward, and all this without tiring.
Another part of Scripture is Hebrews 10 verse 19-24:
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood ofJesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works…
Here I saw that we have such a strong assurance in the blood of Christ, that we can enter the very throne room of God and come in His presence having put on the righteousness of Christ. And after the writer has so gloriously emphasized this fact, he encourages us to stir each other to love and good works. It is because we have this assurance and hope that we can run with love and good works and encourage each other to do the same.
I am now convinced that I can run with the grace that God has provided me. I do not think it is my own strength, but Christ who is strength in my weakness. I see that I am multiplying my talents even in the meal that I prepare my family and the coffee I make my husband every morning so that he can wake up. I also see that I can use this desire that I have - to encourage other moms and expectant ladies to walk closer with God – and start reaching out to others. That is one of the reasons for this blog. I praise God at the same time that the results are in His hands and not in mine.
My desire is that anyone who reads this will also start running for God’s kingdom. His gospel is the power to save!