The case for grace

My son, Matthew, plays bass for a Christian singer named Brandon Heath. Last week I went to hear him at an outdoor concert in Dallas. Brandon composed a powerful song called “Give Me Your Eyes,” from the CD “What If We”. 
The theme is profoundly captured in the chorus prayer to the Lord: Give me your eyes for just one second / Give me your eyes so I can see / Everything that I keep missing / Give me your love for humanity / Give me your arms for the broken hearted / The ones that are far beyond my reach / Give me your heart for the once forgotten / Give me your eyes so I can see.
For Jesus Christ to live in and through us means to learn to view all reality from the perspective of Jesus’ eyes, rather than our own. It’s very challenging to the way the world has conditioned us, and requires a great deal of detachment from ideas and thought processes that distort our perceptions. Paul describes this journey in I Corinthians 13:12, “Now we see in a mirror, dimly; but then we shall see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” While we don’t see perfectly, it doesn’t mean that we can’t learn to see more clearly, through God’s grace.
It can take a long time to develop the ability to glimpse reality through Jesus’ eyes, but it only takes the flash of a second to experience it!  When we have eyes to see reality as God sees, it transforms us forever, and moves us to develop a more giving heart for the world. You see, Christians are called by Jesus to love all people without discrimination. And yet the misery of the world surrounds us with all kinds of heinous crimes and injustices that aren’t deserving of love or forgiveness.
The tyranny of giving the world so much power to make us miserable can be seen as a choice. It’s much easier to give in to the fact that we’re helpless to do anything about our misery and cynicism.  But when we allow ourselves to be immersed in God’s love, we discover new possibilities in the way we view and deal with the world. God’s grace and forgiveness is neither fair nor easy; nor is it earned or deserved. It’s freely given with no strings attached. Grace and mercy are two sides of God’s “love coin,” given to us simply because we’re His, and He loves us. Grace is getting what we don’t deserve (forgiveness) and mercy is not getting what we do deserve (punishment). God’s love and forgiveness are givens. The choice, then, to accept what’s already been given is a decision that can entirely change our life. The story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8 is the perfect example of someone who’s life is converted by love and grace, not threats of judgment. 
Most of us are very aware of the fact that we’re far from perfect, but we play a game with ourselves that says if we compare our sins against another’s, then we can find someone worse than us, and by judging them, we’ll feel better about ourselves. But in our hearts, we know better. If you want to play the compare game, then compare yourself to Jesus. The truth quickly becomes self-evident. The good news that’s really hard for us to accept is that Jesus still loves us in spite of ourselves. He doesn’t die for us because we’re good, but because we’re not. Jesus comes to save, not judge. We need eyes to see that.
You may not buy this, but it’s consistent with New Testament teaching. There’s nothing we can ever do that’ll make God love us any more than he already does. And there’s nothing we can ever do that’ll make God love us any less than he already does. God’s very nature is love, and His love never changes, unlike ours. WE are the ones who choose to remove ourselves from his love, by our thoughts and actions, and we do the same with one another. God never removes his love from us.  And what God loves, we’re called to love, even when it looks from all outward appearances, to be unlovable. The Prodigal Son story in Luke 15 shows a Father allowing his son to make his own choices. He yearns for his repentance, even meeting him on the road the moment he makes the choice to return home, while never once ceasing to love him, even as he squanders his inheritance. Can we see through those eyes?
The Gospel is a radical call to grace, not condemnation. We can choose to see reality either through Christ’s redemptive eyes or our own eyes of judgment. 
The former is definitely more difficult, but very possible, with God’s help. Bottom line: God is love. Period.  Those who accept God’s love discover the joy of growing into creatures of love, whereas those who reject it, find existence in the presence of divine love to be tormenting and stagnant. You cannot escape God’s love, even if you want to. There’s NOWHERE that God’s love is not, EVER!  That’s pure grace, like it or not! In other words, God loves you and there’s not a darn thing you can do about it!
What does looking at life from Jesus’ perspective look like?  Pray for the grace to say and truly mean, “The Image of God in me loves the Image of God in you...and the Image of God in you, loves the Image of God in me.” There’s something there, deep down in all of us, that’s a distorted Image of God, damaged, but not destroyed; redeemable and made to love God and all that God loves, which is everyone and everything he has created. Through God’s grace, Jesus restores the damaged Image of God in us all, even those that Mother Teresa refers to as “Jesus in distressing disguise.”
Jesus’ lenses are clearly lined with endless grace, though we sometimes have difficulty understanding. St. Paul prays three times for a healing of what he describes as a thorn in his flesh, and no cure takes place. Paul is confused, but God gives him clarity: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9)...meaning God’s grace is more than enough healing. May you become wealthy with blessings from the riches of God’s grace!