WHY GRACE MAKES US UNCOMFORTABLE (January 29, 2021)

We’re no good at accepting gifts when we can offer nothing in return.

 

And so we wrestle for the restaurant bill, determined not to be obliged for what someone who loves us wants to pay. We writhe in proud embarrassment when gifted with a sum so large we fear we’ll lose our freedom to decide, to regulate, to choose.

 

We’re willing to be thankful so long as there’s no lingering commitment: we’ve traded Christmas cards and dinners. Our scores must all be evened, and all accounts be balanced.

 

And then the Father overwhelms us with impossibly good news—a flood of undeserved and unrequited kindness for which there’s not a payment plan: “In Christ we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace that He lavished on us” (Eph 1:7).

 

There’s no way we can work if off: there’s no amount of painful, legal rectitude that ever can resolve our debt. God’s grace confronts us with a gift so great that we at last give up on ever evening the score. We learn to live as loved and liberated souls, and one day even revel in “the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:7).

 

Receive the gift from God’s great heart. And stay in grace. -Bill Knott