Grace is both our rest and resolve. Grace restores our broken places while also confronting our sin head-on. Grace meets us in our pain but also revokes our pride. It’s the great equalizer which recognizes our desperate human need.
This is why Christ must be the center of everything, of all we teach and preach. Not our fancy pop-psychology or behavioral checklists. As Paul says, “I resolved to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified … with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.”
It’s only out of gratitude for the grace of Christ that we can really be motivated to follow God at all. The only other option is to beat you down with rules and laws. When you have the security of a never-ending unconditional love, then there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for the one who gave His very life for us. Nothing is off the table for a love like that.
Grace is the unchanging love that changes us; it disturbs our ego and complacency; it is the limitless love that provokes us into the same love. This way takes longer, but its roots grow deeper. It is harder to preach, but its proclamation is what truly transforms.
J.S. Park: Hospital Chaplain, Skeptical Christian 