A
thought by Brant Hansen (2015-04-14) from his book, Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better (p. 159).
Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title of the book to go to
Amazon.com to buy the book.)
Now that
thought is not the complete thought. No,
it is a grabber. Of course some will
just read it and react to it but not go to the blog like you did and really see
what Brant said.
So what is
the complete thought? Brand said, “If
you call yourself a Christian, and you want things to be fair, and you want
God’s rewards given out only to the deserving and the upstanding and the
religious, well, honestly, Jesus has got to be a complete embarrassment to you.”
He
continues, “In fact, to so many upstanding Christians, He is. He has always
been offensive, and remains offensive, to those who seek to achieve ‘righteousness’
through what they do. Always.”
He earlier
says, “The kingdom is not ‘balanced,’ it doesn’t operate via our ‘common sense,’
and you can’t possibly, try as you might, ‘take it too far.’ Being a citizen of
that kingdom, then, means operating in that whole new economy, and grace—
unfair, imbalanced grace— is the currency. By the way, I’ve learned it’s worth
reminding that extending grace does not mean, and has never meant, that there
is ‘no such thing as sin,’ or that there’s no such thing as right or wrong, or
that God smiles on all of our actions. There is sin, there is right and wrong,
and God, like any loving father, of course cares about what we do and who we
are.”
“But that’s
why grace is ‘grace.’ It amazes us because we really don’t deserve it, because
we really have failed, because there really is so much reason for God to walk
away from us, instead of running toward us. God doesn’t love all the things we
do. He loves us in spite of the things we do. So let’s do something crazy and
imbalanced here: let’s embrace the unfairness. Why? Because not only is it in
our best interest, but also, frankly, Jesus gives us no other option.”
So are you
going to do something crazy and embrace the unfairness?
Comments
Post a Comment