If you’ll ask me, there’s no word more beautiful than grace. Used in everyday communication, grace conveys a sense of pleasantness, kindness, flair and spontaneity among other admirable things.
Even in our darkest days, what we intuitively yearn for is grace- to be released from our fears, mistakes and most importantly, our guilt. Although we sometimes distrust and resist grace, at the core when we are left to ourselves to face the harshness of life, it is grace’s embrace that we seek.
Grace breathes freedom and freshness to those held in the restrictive dungeons of legalism and its burdensome expectations.
Surprised? I bet you are! Even just the thought of a world without laws, rules, requirements and expectations is in itself horrifying to most. How can legalism be that bad? Isn’t that what puts us in line and prevents society from falling apart? Theoretically, yes; but practically, it is nowhere close to fulfilling its promise of making us good and law-abiding.
At best, it simply makes us aware of the good and makes it binding on our conscience so that our guilt and misery is rekindled anytime we fall short (which we usually do… sooner or later).
Psychologists tell us that when addicts (and anyone for that matter) are in a state of guilt for indulging their habits, they are prone to repeating that unwanted habit over and over again; at least for as long as the guilt persists.
You can say that guilt is a counterproductive tool. We like to think that when we really feel horrible and ten times guilty for wrongs we have done then we are ten times assured of not getting involved in such wrongs. But is that really the case- has it ever really been the case?
Once we forget about “what should be the case” and instead be objective enough to see “what usually is the case”, we need no expert examination to expose our delusion.
The problem with legalism isn’t because it is in itself bad (I’ve learned to be lenient with labelling things as ‘good’ or ‘bad’). The issue is with how it impacts us; especially those of us who genuinely want to do what is good and right but can’t seem to find the ability within ourselves to do so.
I think that is where majority of people are; they are looking for a way out of their guilt and misery. When we are at our wits end shackled with the fear of impending judgement and ultimate doom, grace finds its way into our stinky dungeons and with gentle yet firm hands breaks the shackles and lead us on into a well-adorned spacious room on whose entrance are inscribed the words, NO CONDEMNATION.
Your burden of guilt and condemnation is long overdue. Grace is the answer; the ultimate liberator. It is gentle without and ferocious within. When the light of grace shines, all others run for cover.
What’s more, this grace of which we speak is made manifest in Jesus. Jesus is God’s amazing grace made known to all. Let’s join in the grace party!
Restpiration 