Cheap grace

Is giving someone grace acceptance? Do they view the grace as what they did was fine, that it wasn’t a big deal?

Is accepting a situation or what someone has done to you, is that grace?

Have you ever been lied to? Maybe stabbed in the back? 

Thrown or put in a situation unwillingly because of someone else’s actions?

The definition of grace means “gift”. Rob Bell (from podcast 79 Grace and Peace) states that the origins of its source is beyond you. You didn’t deserve it. It’s flowed to you and you receive it. Showing grace is when you don’t bring harsh judgment, you extended a gift to a person or to situation that could have been damaging or awkward. 

I asked those grace questions to a friend of ours. The wise man replied back with, “grace isn’t about how the other person you are extending grace to views it. It’s about where your heart is; it’s a heart matter.” This statement and truth made me check my thinking. Am I extending grace to people because I expect them to change? Or am I extending it because I love the person more than what was done, no matter how they respond? It doesn’t matter if the receiver of the grace views it as “acceptance” or if others do. It’s about where your heart and attitude are at.

We live in a culture where we are constantly concerned about how others view us, their opinions of us. Look at Instagram, photo filters, Facebook, family Christmas cards, social clubs, etc. How many times a day do we think about how people (those we know and don’t know) view our actions, what Facebook posts we like, what activities we’re involved in, what kind of job have? Grace is the complete opposite of that. Grace is concerned with your heart no matter what is looks like to the receiver or others around you. Grace is a divine matter.

If grace has its origins in a source beyond the self, maybe that is why it has been so hard for me to figure out how to completely 100% give it? It has kept me up late at night. I can’t tell you how many times I have asked my husband, “Is my grace cheap?” in 2019. Grace comes from the divine; God. Alone, my grace is cheap because it’s completely against human nature. And isn’t easier to write someone off, or avoid them? Then that way you’re not faced with the effort and the emotional strife of saving and mending a relationship, plus you won’t get hurt again. Anything to not get emotionally hurt these days, right? Move on? If they did ill to me, why make an effort to show kindness? That’s not love.

Jesus calls us to a higher love: John 15:9-13 I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. 10 When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. 11 I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! 12 This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. Jesus loved and hung out with the diseased, the despised, and prostitutes (which at that time was beyond radical). If you don’t believe in God, that’s fine. But a man who loved and gave grace to the messy, those who were tossed aside and outcasted, what if we all lived like that? What if we all gave grace? What joy and freedom that would bring to life?

I might have opened a huge can of worms that I’m no way near educated on. I’m not pastor or any religious leader, married to one but I have no degrees in theology, religion, or Jesus. I continue to work through these concepts, maybe that’s why I started writing? I know what Jesus wants from all of us; showing unconditional love, grace, and kindness too ALL. Not the person who is easy but to the messy and difficult, maybe impossible. Yet, it is not do-able on our own but through the divine.

To answer the wrong questions I was asking: No, grace is not acceptance. It’s more than that. Grace is divine, healing, mending, and a gift.

Shalom,

Rachelle