Loss, Grace and Forgiveness

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I love Tim Keller's bible teaching. He marries the truth of the bible and the practical outworking of it with care and marvelous help for the christian.

I have been listening to his talk on community.

Here are some great themes from the book of James.

Here is the rub. We are called to live our lives as though it is given for others. There is a choose here...

My life lived for me or my life lived for you. 100 x a day we are faced with this simple choice.  We are given countless opportunities to dies to ourselves and in so doing love others. It can be with our time; with our privilege , with absolutely anything that God gives us in our day. The choice is there. 

I can lay down my life again and again and again or I can live my life for myself.

Both of these reap a reward.

Keller explains that death to self builds community. It  does so because someone is blessed and is thankful. In saying those words... Thank You... we are expressing our gratitude and indebtedness to one another. Community is built on the bonds of thank you, 

Beautiful stuff.

 Challenging stuff.

There is obligation in community.

The big boulder we all have to navigate is the reality we all share and have looping within us.

Pride!!

That nasty word that makes my skin crawl. Place it in the centre of the room and take a stroll around it and here is what we find. At some level we all are proud and it is our pride that breaks community.

Keller has a simple check list for pride that I found helpful.

Proud People

* Being dogmatic about every point of belief 

* Loves to confront people to much or to little

* Proud people  are arrogant and self assured

Humble people

* Humble people confront when it is necessary

* Humble people are happy with life as it is

* Humble people are slow to speak of other peoples faults and if they do , do so with respect and always to heal

* Stick with people through tough times no matter what

* Do not like confronting people

*Do not complain about life 

Wow! these are challenging indeed. 

God have Mercy on me. Help me to lay down my life for those who you bring into my life. 

Humility is having a confidence that God is looking after me and having a deep steadfastness about this truth. Being humble means we know our worth to God and so we are able to have courage, kindness, gentleness, forgiveness and other centredness.

We are able to have a growing humility that God offers us in Jesus Christ!

We can grow in humility. How exciting.

If we understand these two things.....

1. Do I know how very much God loves me. His love is enormous. Do I know this deeply, really with utter certainty so that I can lay down my life in freedom for others.

2. Grasping the upside down principle that is at the very heart of the universe. 

This is the backward way that God has set things up. 

Truth that expresses

 -The first will be last the last first....

-Humble yourself and you will be lifted up..

-Lay down your life for others and God you will give it back.

-True power is giving it away and serving others.

Jesus supremely gave up everything for me. He layed his life down and then he was exalted.

Hanging onto life  will only mean that in the end we loose it forever and along the way that loss begins.

Grace
God gives us grace as we go about the business of living for others. This is so profoundly comforting in the midst of the reality of life BECAUSE I find people really difficult sometimes. Nice people are unkind, thoughtless, take advantage and use one another. Nice people do unkind things and say really nasty stuff to one another and seem to go on as if all is well. Gods grace in the midst of self centred and selfish behaviour is what I know I need to love others who are often quite unlovely.

The thing I choose to remember here is that nothing slips past Gods sight. He sees and knows everything. When are disregarded , God regards us. When we are rejected and left for loss; God never rejects us and leaves us for loss. We are accepted as we are by the living God and so we are given grace to love others who are unlovely.

Forgiveness is the heart of the christian message. God offers every man, woman and child on the face of the earth, the offer of his forgiveness. He holds it out to each of us though we are really not deserving of his forgiveness. We have snubbed and rejected him. We do not want him to love us; care for us or rule us in love. And yet he came....

The offer still stands.

This forgiveness that I have been given is rich and real and it is this forgiveness I can hold out to others. It seems to me that much of life is made up of loss, grace and forgiveness. Not necessarily in this order. People are cruel and life is hard. We can either wither and wilt or we can have courage to live and love with God help.

Offering forgiveness to folks who do not deserve it is freeing and serving.

It is life!