New Day Transformations

Unbelievably, another hurricane is headed toward Florida.  I cannot begin to imagine what Floridians are thinking.  They haven’t had time to recuperate from Helene.  Now there is Milton.

I’ve watched YouTube videos of the devastation left behind by Helene.  Video never does justice to the scale of landscape, but even in the small window of my computer monitor, the extent of the destruction of roads, infrastructure, buildings, and entire mountainsides is obvious.  Obvious, yet almost impossible to comprehend.

Thankfully, storms like Helene and Milton don’t happen every day.

Disproportionately greater than these storms, and what does happen on a daily basis, is the abundance of God’s grace toward each of us.  It is a little clumsy to try and compare an intangible (God’s grace) with the physical and material (storms and the devastation they leave behind).  Yet there is a point of correspondence.  Both are radically transformational.  The mountains of North Carolina will never be the same.  Neither is a life touched by God’s grace.

Everyone is impacted by God's grace every day.  In His created order, there is a “baseline” of God’s grace:  the rain that falls on the earth so it can produce food; the breath in our lungs; the reliability of the celestial bodies (and all the “laws of nature” for that matter).  Any common goodness in our society is because God’s grace is present and active.

This grace also has a more particular dimension to it.  Not only does God’s grace sustain all He has created, it is at work in the hearts and minds of His image-bearers as we pursue knowing Him and learn how to live as citizens of His Kingdom.  My favourite transformed-by-grace story in the Bible is the Apostle Paul.  At one time he was a persecutor and murderer of those who were followers of Jesus.  By God’s grace, he then became a pastor and mentor to the very same communities of faith.  This kind of radical transformation is possible only by grace.

God, through grace, wants to transform our character. Not just “my” character, but “our” character.   Godly character is displayed in the context of relationship.  A hermit doesn’t have to worry about anger, forgiveness or serving others. Accordingly, the church is not a displaced mass of individuals with a common belief system, wandering aimlessly, alone in life.  We gather as community, representing His Kingdom and stewarding His resources.  We will be challenged as we live our faith together, and in these experiences we will learn about God’s grace. Together.  You will probably be the greatest agent of grace in my life to help me to mature, and hopefully I will be the same for you.  We need each other.  We grow each other.

We can make two observations that sharpen our perspective of God’s work of grace in us.  First, let's think of God's grace as being personal rather than individual. “Individual” faith makes the “me” the focus of grace and faith.  “Personal” faith understands I am accountable before God, but I am also a member of the larger, corporate body.  God’s grace is effectual in my life in both spheres.

Let’s also consider the "collectiveness" of grace as important as the "personal" sense of grace.  God is in at work “in us” as much as “in me.”  The credibility of the gospel, the authenticity of our faith is seen in both.  The life Peter envisaged as being hopeful (1 Pet. 3:15) engaged not just each believer’s life, but the life of that entire body of Christ.

None of us can live independently of God’s grace - even if we are not believers in God.  This grace so permeates everything, it is impossible to escape.  But it is very possible to refuse to allow its transformational process.  Depth of Bible knowledge is not the same as changing deeply rooted values and behaviours.  The Apostle Paul documents an impressive list in 1 Corinthians 6 of the “before” life of that body of Christ:  sexually immoral, thieves, drunks, covetous, and fraudsters.  “But now,” he says to them, “you have been washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  The threefold repetition of God’s work emphasizes how far they had come . . . because of God’s grace.

A week from now we will probably be shaking our heads as we try to comprehend the incomprehensible damage of yet another hurricane.  And, hopefully, we will also be bowing our heads as we give thanks to God for the equally incomprehensible work of His grace in us - personally and together.