Who Deserves Grace?
Am I a bad person when I am constantly judging if someone is good or not? Does it count if I disregard someone on the news who I think isn’t a good role model? What about determining that my husband, no matter what, is a great person? Who am I to judge? Well, I think we all to some degree think we are the best person to judge because we do- it- all -the- time. We collect data points about a person and make a determination based on our scale of good and evil where they should land. Our scale usually doesn’t work the same to evaluate our own true self. That would suck. `
It has been on my mind lately and I just can’t shake it. How do we really determine who deserves grace? And who doesn’t? It really started in my brain after this past month of news when all kinds of opinions have come out on both sides of political fronts. Did a man who died deserve it? Should we judge a violent crime based on the value of the person? What about when someone bad dies, should we judge that less because they made bad choices? How many bad choices does one get before they switch to permanently being a bad person? Can they change, and does our judgement change? Can a bad person make some good choices? Does that fully redeem them?
“Grace means that all of your mistakes now serve a purpose instead of serving shame.”
- Brene Brown
The Bible is full of people who made bad choices at different times in their lives. I have tried to put some of those in my “ today mind” and decide how I might approach it. Take David for instance. King David was well known for being a man after God’s own heart. He was a mighty warrior who took down Goliath. He won many battles and led the nation of Israel very well. He also stole someone’s wife and got her pregnant. Then, he had her husband killed so no one would find out. Then he took her to be his wife. Well, one of them. If he were my friend or even my neighbor, I would likely not speak to him for those decisions. And yet, when confronted, he repented and God still used him to do great things.
Take another unlikely candidate, Jonah. He seemed to be well favored by God because God chose him to go to Nineveh to save the people there after very wicked behavior. Jonah did everything he could to run the other way including being swallowed by a fish. God gave him a second chance and he still copped an attitude. And yet, he did what God asked and all those people were saved and so was he. I would not have been so forgiving. I might have left their friendship early on.
So if I put myself under the microscope what would I find? I was not seen as the best kid in my early years, surely causing my parents many gray hairs. I have fired a friend who likely really needed their job. I have made mistakes in how to love each of our kids best. I have betrayed a trust with more than one person who now cannot forgive me. Am I still a good person? Do I deserve grace?
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
Lucky for you and me, God offers grace that covers all the crazy and insane things that we humans can come up with. He offers Jesus on the cross, to pay the debt for all of our sins, so we can be seen to God as blameless and full of the grace he offers us. No one else can do that for us. And only God offers so much grace that he gives second chances when we do things that would cause others to judge us and turn their backs on us.
…and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
I would like to suggest that all of us need to accept a healthy dose of grace and to also offer it to others around us. Our world could use some time off from canceling each other. We could try to see things from another point of view vs. villainizing the other person. So how do I get past things that stop me from offering grace to another person? If the guy down the street has been a jerk to all the other neighbors and we tend to avoid and alienate him, what would it look like to wave every time I see him and then pray for him? I can do that. What if a friend has destroyed my trust to confide in them? I could set boundaries around what I share with them and still keep a friendship. What about a co-worker who undermines me every chance they get? I could keep things professional and, when it is obvious, try to have an up front conversation about topics on which we don’t see eye to eye.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.
Considering grace for a stranger may seem less difficult than for that of a friend; a lack of relationship with the stranger makes this much easier. When I see posts on social media that rub me the wrong way, how can I not react or consider what that person’s point of view might be? What are their life experiences that made them feel that way? Where have they offered grace to some of my points of view and I don't even know it?
And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.
So how could we all take one step closer to offering grace and receiving it ourselves?
Stop yourself the next time you begin to judge another person. Close your eyes and put yourself in their shoes. What is their point of view? Why do they have it? How could you consider grace for them?
Read more about Grace- There are so many books out there on grace. There are also many verses in the bible. Do a Google search and see what you find.
Try having a conversation with someone who thinks differently than you. Who makes different choices than you. What can you learn from that conversation? How do you keep it a conversation and not a debate?
