Tucked away in the book of James is the verse ‘He gives us more grace.’ (James 4:6)
So often, we want to be in control of our lives, planning, organising and growing in independence. We start by faith, trusting in God’s grace, but like the Galatian church, we often carry on in our own strength, thinking we can manage quite adequately without God. Grace is reckless, unearned and dangerous; we feel immensely vulnerable when we live by grace, rather than by the conventional rules of society (‘you scratch my back; I’ll scratch yours.’)
Grace, like manna, is not something we receive just the once and then can manage without it. The God of all grace, a God who gives us ‘grace upon grace’, ‘gifts of grace beyond our imagination’ (Jn 1:16) wants us to live in daily dependence on Him and then pass on the grace we receive to others.
So often, we are not gracious. We are irritable, nit-picking, focussing on the speck of dust in other people’s eyes without seeing the plank in our own. So often, we are bigoted, prejudiced, racist and just plain unkind to others, without ever seeing the incongruity in how we live compared to our Saviour. God wants us to be saturated in grace till it becomes our default reaction. Only then can we reflect God’s nature to a world which desperately needs grace. Grace-made people are not perfect. But they are people who know and rely on the love of God (1 Jn 4:16), rather than on their own resources. Grace-made people are works in progress, but they are people who live by faith and not by sight and who are learning to lean on God and not on their own understanding. (2 Cor 5:7, Prov 3:5) Grace-made people are those who are looking for opportunities to pass on blessing to others.
The way of grace is often difficult, but it’s a way of immense blessing and joy.
