Grace Mercy Peace!

     In studying Romans I noticed how often Paul uses these 3 words: Grace, Mercy, Peace.   These are not words we hear used much today.   They seem foreign to us.  You almost expect to see them removed from the dictionary from their lack of use. 

   Grace is hard to define.  I once heard a pastor say, "Grace stands for, God's Riches At Christ's Expense".   That is nice and simple,  but is that all?   Is it just how God treats ME??    How do I live a life of Grace?   We are able to offer grace to others, but usually on a temporary and need-to-have basis.   Some one is being a jerk because they lost their job or a death in the family... we extend grace to them.   Someone is having a bad day at work.... we extend grace to them.   A person in line at a grocery store with 1 item in hand and we have a cart full of food.... we extend grace and let them go ahead.  That kind of grace is passive in nature.   I don't really have to do anything but let you by and have your way.   God's grace is not just passive.... it extends to action.   Mercy is the active form of Grace.  It doesn't just step aside, but it steps forward to help and to save.

   I was watching a TV show about "Horders".   These are people who are living a life of misery in the filth they have accumulated over many years.    One woman was helping her sister clean her house and as she walked upstairs she was astonished to find the upstairs carpet littered with dog feces.   It was literally everywhere you stepped.  She asked, "How do live like this?"  and her sister replied, "I don't go up there anymore!" .   She has a 2 story house but only lives on the first floor.  She didn't even smell the stench anymore.

   Jesus comes to our doors knocking.  Asking to come in.   Not to have tea, but here to clean up our sin-hording-lives.   We, like that woman, have horded our sins and collected them for so long we are either too ashamed to let people in or we don't even notice them anymore.   At first those sins were small and controllable we felt.  But somewhere along the line they took over.   Like those dogs who took over the woman's upstairs and had crapped all over her floor, our sins made a mess of our lives.   They are our "pet sins" we don't want to get rid of.   Jesus comes and kicks those dogs out and picks up the sin-feces that is all around us and halls it away to the cross for us.   That is MERCY.

   Finally, through that MERCY we can have PEACE, not only him but also with each other.  Our cleaned up homes/lives are not a sign of how great we are but how great he is.   But Jesus doesn't just come to clean your home.  He wants to come and have life with you in you and He wants to clean everyone's home.  He wants us to be on mission with him to help others using the same GRACE, MERCY and PEACE he has extended to us.   How do we do that?

    At the end of the TV program they would show the BEFORE and AFTER pictures of the home.   The people whose lives have been changed often say how they could not have done this on their own and how they owe a debt of gratitude to the people who stepped in and helped.  Other people who watch this show are compelled to call in and ask for their help.   They want what those people have.  We must be willing to show others, like in the TV show, our before and after pictures.   We must be open to allow others to see what Christ has done for us and continues to do for us because, you see, our hording natures have not been deleted.   We get lazy. We get side-tracked.  We get lured back into allowing "the dogs"  back into our homes only to have Christ kick them out again when we call out to God, "Lord have MERCY on me a sinner!"

GRACE, MERCY and PEACE now have new meanings to us. 

Suffering can be Merciful.

  How many of us pray for a quick and speedy death?  I know I sometimes do.  I don't even like going to the dentist to have my teeth cleaned (I do anyway).   When a person dies from a car accident or being hit by a car while walking often hear people say, "Well at least they died quickly and did not suffer much".   As humans we hate long painful deaths.   We want it over quickly and painlessly.  Even for horrible criminals in prison who are on death-row we give them quick and painless ways of dying. No one likes pain.   We avoid it all cost. 

   But pain and suffering are sometimes God's only tools to pry open our hearts to him.  Take for example the thief on the cross next to Jesus.   In one Gospel account it says that BOTH criminals mocked Jesus and hurled insults at him.   But somewhere in that 6 hour ordeal one of them had a change of heart.  One of the criminals in his own agony saw that the one in the middle was different.  He did not treat his mockers with hatred and animosity but instead called out to God to forgive them.  The Holy Spirit used the suffering he was undergoing to lead him to faith and ask Jesus ,in affect, for forgiveness by asking him to "remember me when you enter your kingdom".     That is all.. just "remember me". 

    Had God given the thief a quick and painless death he would have missed out on the opportunity to meet Jesus.   Suffering was the most merciful thing God could do for him. 

    Some refer to these as "death-bed-conversions".   We often question the "sincerity" of the conversion, but not God.  We may inwardly roll our eyes at stories of people who come to faith this late in life but God doesn't.  Did Jesus question his sincerity?   Did he mock him by saying, "Really??? Now you want to follow me?  It's a little too late for that!".    No.   Instead he gives the man assurance of his salvation.   In fact, he is the only person in the Gospels Jesus ever gives this promise to directly.  Was it a coincidence that this man could do NOTHING to earn or prove his love of Jesus?   I don't think so.   Jesus is showing to all that it is literally FAITH ALONE that saves.   Faith in a loving God that remembers us and pulls us from hell itself .

   Of course there are always many who are like the other thief on the other side of Jesus who continue to curse God up til the very end.   The "good thief" chastises the other thief on the cross when he says, "DO YOU NOT FEAR GOD??"    He goes on to testify for Jesus to his fellow partner in crime when he says, "We are getting what our crimes deserve, but THIS man has done nothing wrong!".    How did he come to that realization?   We don't know.   Maybe it was what he heard the Pharisees say about him when they said "He saved others but he cannot save himself!"   Note they did not say "He pretends to save others" , but that "He saves others".   Later these same men tell Jesus "If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross and we will believe you!".   Inadvertently they profess the Gospel without knowing it to the thief on the cross.   Maybe also it was the large group of women who came to the cross and weep for Jesus that struck a nerve with him?   What women would weep for a criminal or scoundrel who deserves death?   Maybe it was how Jesus cared for others even in his own pain as he reached out with words to his mother.  Whatever it was, the thief's heart was changed.   Like "The Scrooges" heart that was "2-sizes too small"  so also this mans heart was opened for Christ the King to enter in and make his throne. 

   I like to think that this thief died with a smile on his face to the dismay of the Pharisees and soldiers below.