Grace

"Put Bluntly, the American church today accepts grace in theory, but denies it in practice. We say we believe that the fundamental structure of reality is grace, not works--but our lives refute our faith. By and large, the gospel of grace is neither proclaimed, understood, nor lived. Too many christians are living in the house of fear, and not in the house of love." - Brennan Manning, The Ragmuffin Gospel

How true is that! We are told to accept grace, but do we practice it? He talks about how the word "grace" has lost its flaire. It is misused and overused. We live in a world that teaches us to earn everything, to work for everything, that we get what we deserve, that we have to earn love. To God, grace is his gift to us. I cannot do anything that makes grace "more deserved". He also talked about how we tell others about grace and love and blah blah blah, but we dont accept the homosexuals, the "sluts", the drunks, or the poor. We give them cold stares when they walk through the church doors or we become obviously uncomfortable. We have become "wounders of the healed, rather than healers of the wounded". We are trying too hard to impress God, we try so hard to find another way to get to heaven, another way to have a relationship with Christ instead of simply accepting his gift. We rely on ourselves, because its just too hard to trust in the God who made us. It's too hard to trust our Father, the one who GAVE us our hands, eyes, and minds that help us to "earn" everything else that we have. A gift. Everything is a gift from God. Not deserved, not paid for by anything we can give, not a debt held over our heads that God expects us to pay back. Its just simply a gift. ... he gave us grace because he loves us and He wants to have a relationship with us. Plain and simple.

By denying grace... by trying to get to Heaven by our good works we are telling God "The blood wasn't enough.. I need to do more."  Ouch. 

Just some food for thought.