A Glimpse of Grace

I always thought that I was one of those, slow to get angry type of people. Sure I can get a little frustrated and quickly worked up about something, but angry, that is not what I would have classified myself as and then I became a dad. Now don't get me wrong I love being a dad and would not change it even if hell could freeze over. But being a dad has scrapped off my shiny layer of niceness and revealed the ugly, it's like scrubbing off the thick makeup of a beautiful model revealing that she is nothing more than a monkey.

A few nights ago as we met as elders and deacons I asked the guys a question. 'Do you think that God gets angry with His blood bought children when they sin?' I mean I know that God has saved me by his grace, but is he really saving me by His grace. The bible is quite clear that I was dead, blind, and an object of the wrath of God. I was in the grave of sinfulness without a Godward desire to be found and it was grace that said let there be light and I saw the glory of God in the face of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4-6). Really, God breathed life into my soul, I get that, that is something that I can wrap my prideful cranium around, but living by grace in all the details of life that is where the being saved by grace is lived out (conformed into the image of Christ). After all doesn't God bless me when I do good things and then not bless me when I screw up.

But wait a minute, if that is how I am living out my faith then I am not believing in the gospel anymore which is; I am a sinner who has offended the Holy Sovereign King of the universe, and because of this sinning, not being Godward, being ungodly, I am deserving of the eternal extinguishing wrath of God. Yet God in His gracious mercy has caused me to be born again into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Peter 1:4), and He did this when I was a sinner, when I was His passionate enemy.

After all if God created me in His image, and God is like me and I get angry at my son for running his sister over with his motorcycle (radio flyer tricycle) then surely God gets angry at me when I sin or just do something that is completely stupid. After all wasn't God created in my image?

My point is that even in the most spiritual act, or the most sinful, my standing before God is not determined on anything that I do, but only on Christ. I am daily deserving of death but Jesus has not only made me guiltless before the holy God of the universe, but He has clothed me in His own righteousness. Not only has He paid for my sin, past, present and future, in the sight of God I am not just sinless, but holy and blameless because Jesus gave me His own righteous identity.

So when I get angry at my son for running his sister over with his radio flyer tricycle, God sees Jesus, now that is amazing grace.