Grace That is Greater Than All Our Sin

Things have been picking up around here lately. We have been on campus every day meeting college students and sharing with them. Some of my conversations were exciting, and some not so exciting, but the gospel was shared either way. I have made one really good friend, named Hashim. He is a second year student, and he comes from a muslim family. He has come to church with me a few times and said that he really enjoys the service. We have had many good conversations, and yesterday he invited me to celebrate Eid ul-Fitr with him and his family. Eid is the festival marking the end of the fast of Ramadan. All I know is that there will be much food, one white guy, and subsequently one Christian at this festival.

So on a different note, I am really excited about some cool things that God has shown me lately. I have been reading a lot of different parables of Jesus, and really trying to find some solid application for them in Dar es Salaam. Which wasn't hard. Very quickly I learned that they all have overtones, if not blatant demonstrations of grace. My two favorite parables have always been The Prodigal Son, and The Parable of The Workers and Their Pay (cliche, I know, but what can I say). I read them again, and its grace and hope everywhere. The father comes sprinting down the road to meet his son. The son who so readily said, "Dad, I'm sick of this life you got here. Give me the goods, I'm outta here!" He greets him with no questions asked. Just thrilled that his son would come back. Or when the employer chooses to give the laborer who only worked for an hour the whole days wages. "It's my money right?" "Can I not do with it what I choose?" Those men, in a system where you get ONLY what you earn, 

deserved very little. But they were given much. They were given grace. Not pay.

So in thinking about all this grace I began to question two things. One is, how is it possible? Two, what was the cost? 

So the answer to the first question is kinda hard... so hard I gave up looking.  In short, I don't know how its possible. I guess the only explanation is supreme love. God would rather make a way for his family to return than to let us die in our sinful rebellion.  

The second question gave me chills when I sought to answer it. Obviously the cost was Jesus Christ's perfect life, given as a bloody, gruesome sacrifice. But for me, this time, there was more. Try and follow this scatterbrained farrago of thoughts. I am a little ashamed to admit what I am about to share, but its the truth, so I'll try and get real honest. Until recently, I kind of thought that sending Jesus wasn't that big of a deal. And I was a believer at this point too! Crazy huh? But my thinking was that if we sin, God could just make a sacrifice for us. Jesus. Done deal right? NO!

Jesus wasn't drummed up as a solution to our sin. Shame on me for ever thinking so. God did not look down at His wayward people and say, "I need a sacrifice for these people that I love. Let me see what I can come up with." He looked at his Son who had always been with Him. ALWAYS BEEN. From the very beginning, to creation, to his death, and will never cease to be. To assume anything else, takes away from the deity of Jesus. So the cost of grace was higher than I had ever thought. Maybe I am just ignorant, but I think that I have vastly underestimated this grace thing here. It is truly unbelievable. God did not fashion something else, in an attempt to not have to come down to a lost and dying world. He did not try and shirk this task of redeeming the world, to put it on someone else. He did it. HE CAME DOWN. GOD HIMSELF. IN THE FORM OF JESUS, THE FATHER'S BELOVED SON.

 

I hope to never ever let the magnitude of this grace, and as a result, this scope of love, escape my thoughts. Grace is what needs to be my song. More than any doctrines or dogmatic approaches to a person's belief system. I need to preach grace, and the hope that is found therein. to the people that I am meeting here. I am excited. People don't need to hear what I think about things. They need to hear grace.

Peace,

JOel