Grace

Grace, mercy and forgiveness. These three words are some of the most powerful words that we have in our world. Yet they are words that I fear are losing their meaning in our time and place. These words often intermingle, and each represents a gift, a gift undeserved.

I would like to focus today a little on grace.

Grace defined is free and unmerited favour, it is a gift undeserved. It is safe to say that everyone enjoys receiving a gift and in my experience we all enjoy receiving grace. I am sure we all have a story in our life where something went wrong and we deserved a particular outcome, yet for whatever reason grace was given to us and we were let off. Like being caught speeding and the police officer letting you off with a warning. We all like that, we like getting off and we are grateful to the person that gave us grace and they will often rise in our esteem.

Receiving grace in the form of mercy rather than the justice that we deserve is at the core of the gospel story. In His interactions with His people God has not given us what we deserve. Our desire to do our own thing resulted in our rejection of God from that first time in the Garden of Eden and continuing today. What we deserve is to be cut of from Him forever. That is what true death is.

Instead of giving us death and cutting us off, God shows immense mercy and maintains relationship with us.

The reality is that in this exquisite tension between justice and grace, someone has to pay the cost. When it comes to grace the giver bears the cost. Sometimes the cost of grace is small, not demanding too much of us. Sometimes it costs an awful lot and is incredibly painful to bear. In restoring His relationship with us, grace cost God the life of His son Jesus. Jesus paid the price of our selfishness and sin instead of us.  That never ceases to amaze me.

When we choose to dispense grace it costs us, it really can cost us greatly, yet the benefits of relationship, forgiveness and joy, far out strip the cost. In addition, when we turn to God for strength He gives us the strength we need to bear the cost, and when we turn to Him for the grace we need, He fills us with it so we may share that grace and love with others.

At Green Point Christian College we believe that grace is the prime evidence of the love God has for us, and when we demonstrate grace we demonstrate our - and Gods - love for others. We also hope to be a community in which these amazing words continue to hold their meaning. May I encourage you to continue to explore the place of grace in your life and interactions.

Joel van Bentum