Despite all technological developments and scientific advances, the human condition seems fascinatingly stable.
Neither societal progress nor secular beliefs have provided new tools to deal with our sense of guilt and shame. And we still feel the same old gap between our ideals and our ability to accomplish them.
So, we all carry a doubleness within ourselves, and how we deal with the internal battle defines us.
In this blog, I explore how grace is the ultimate game-changer in dealing with our brokenness.
Grace is the secret sauce
In the Christian tradition, grace is the secret sauce. It is the only power that can transform and help us become who we are.
In my TEDx talk “How to Seek Forgiveness When Relationships Are On the Line,” I told the story of how my ego led me astray and that I had no idea what grace meant before I, at one point, gave up.
I was a product of my time. I had bought into the secular exploration of my unique individual potential.
Like so many people in the West, I’d abandoned faith without having a clue about what the Gospel actually was all about and knowing nothing about the transformative power of grace.
Since then, I’ve gradually transformed from the inside. My rock bottom became the solid ground on which I began to build the rest of my life—this time, with grace and the gospel as my foundation.
The surprising power of giving up
In my upcoming book “Rebranding The Church,” I establish two theses for analyzing how we communicate grace and the core message of the Gospel.
Thesis # 1:
The church’s influence is directly proportional to its clarity on the physical life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Thesis # 2:
Christians are no different from anyone else. We are all a mess, but the difference lies in accepting Jesus Christ as our savior from brokenness. While we are called to be sanctified, we can only fulfill ideals like “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” “Love your enemy,” and “Treat others the way you want to be treated” to the extent that we allow Jesus to transform us from within.
The Gospel is not information; it is transformation.
Dallas Willard said, “Grace is God acting in our lives to accomplish what we can’t accomplish on our own.”
Christian faith is not fueled by performance but by grace. Grace is not opposite to effort, but grace is opposite to earning.
Like Paul learned the hard way; “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.” (2. Corinthians 12:9 (NIV))
In my opinion, this is where the spiritual battle of our time is located.
Again, let me lean on the wisdom of Dallas Willard:
The greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heartbreaking needs, is whether those who, by profession or culture, are identified as ‘Christians’ will become disciples – students, apprentices, practitioners – of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens into every corner of human existence.
(Source: The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus's Essential Teachings on Discipleship)
In the podcast Practicing the Way (episode 5), John Mark Comer quotes the French writer Jacques Philippe: “The primary task of a disciple of Jesus is just learning how to open deeper and deeper parts of ourselves to grace.”
I want to be a part of that! Do you?
See you next week!
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