"...but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."- Romans 5:8
Grace. It's a word we've all heard before, but if I asked you to define it for me would you be able to do it? The definition by Merriam-Webster says that grace is an unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification. Another definition says that it is a virtue coming from God. Although these are the official definitions, I don't feel like they do the word justice.
Over the past week or so I have seen this word a lot and I have been learning a lot about what it truly means. Early on in my journey with Jesus I would sit and wonder why in the world God would show us grace in the way that He does. We turn our backs to Him all the time and basically curse Him to His face, and He still shows us grace.
We have done absolutely nothing to deserve grace. None of us deserve it, and there is nothing we can do to deserve it. We were the ones that messed up our relationship with God, but He is the one that has chosen to do something about it, to make things right.
God pursues a relationship with us even when we do things that He doesn't want us to. If His Spirit is within us, and we are called to be perfect because our Father is perfect, then are we not supposed to do the same thing?
It's easy to show this kind of grace when things are going our way, but when things don't go our way we have the opportunity to show grace in the way that God does. That is when we get to show that God's Spirit is moving in us and we have the opportunity to put our money where our mouth is.
In the book of James, James talks about how faith without works is dead. If we really believe in the grace that God shows us, then we should long to show that to other people. If we don't show that grace to people, will they think that we actually believe in the grace that we talk about so much?
Over these past few days I have learned so much about the grace that God shows us by Him presenting opportunities for me to show that to people, and then saying to me, "Camp, you need to show Jesus even when it's hard to." When it is hard, that's when you really get to show what you believe. Take Jesus for example. He preached about this kind of grace and love, and when the time came to show that, He did so and even in the middle of being crucified. He showed grace to the people that were murdering Him while He was on the cross! He said, "Father forgive them..." as He was dying. That is how I want to live.
Over these past few weeks my prayer to the Lord has been that He would present opportunities to me in which I could show people love. He has definitely granted that to me. It wasn't in the way I expected, or really wanted, but because of the way it happened it is a lesson that will stick with me for the rest of my life here.
Show grace and love to people even when it is hard to, because that is when they see the Lord in you.
