Image via WikipediaThe Bible includes one clear revelation in the promise, birth, life, teachings, sufferings, death and resurrection of Christ is that God is full of "grace," the Christian word meaning God's love and help. Grace means God initiates movement towards us and takes helpful action on our behalf. In the Christian message grace means that God freely enters into our human situation, lives among us, takes into his being our pain, brokenness and limitation, and all the consequences of it. It means that he bears our burdens in his body and in his life. It means that he fully gives himself to us and for us. Grace means that he comes to be with us, to help us, to show himself as the way, the truth, the life - as our way, our truth, our life - and to enter into the human experience of death so that he overcomes the power of death for us. Grace means that God comes to us and reveals himself, to us, because by ourselves we can't find him. God's grace had to become the living Word among us - relating with people, speaking touching healing, giving life. And as we, through faith see God in human flesh, clearly he is full of grace. He who accepts God's grace lives a life fully in harmony with God's moral law. He is the obedient one who fulfills God's law - on our behalf. When Jesus, our savior and model thought about the cross, his sweat became as great drops of blood. He agonized he prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." (Matt. 26:39)
What is God's will?
And obediently he went to the cross. Later, to his disciples, he said, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you." (Matt. 28:19-20)
Of the four actions commanded, which one is central?
In creating us in his image, God implanted in our being, his moral law, which is the law of love. Without it, we cant be persons created in the image of God. God's moral law of love is essential to personhood, to relationship with God, self, and others. It is indeed the only way that we can have abundant life. part of our sinful nature is that we want to establish our own law. Christian living requires that the Christian has complete faith in his/her God and that He is alive within that person and He finds expression in their life. This is what is meant by, "The kingdom of heaven is within you." If it is their, it is their in their submission to God, and others.
Christian living is a behavior of believing in a God full of grace and believing that only a God of unconditional love can be our Savior. Faith is more than "Knowing about;" it is believing and accepting and living the reality of the revealed grace of God in Jesus Christ.
Christian living prays, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." Christian living prays, "Not my will, but your will be done."
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