(IMPACT — Grace and Peace)

 

So we’ve looked at how the Father’s grace, given to us in his son Jesus, gifts us with unconditional acceptance into his immediate family as a child of God — and how this frees me to totally (and rationally) entrust myself to his care.  

 

This changes everything.  As Tim Keller puts it in “Counterfeit Gods” — Fellowship with God does not come in response to a changed life; a changed life comes as a result of fellowship with God -- and this, by grace alone.   This is the Gospel.   

 

Here is my own story, in a nutshell…

 

My life was built on two false premises... That the approval of others was the most important thing in my life, and that I could control people's opinion and approval of me through my performance.  As a young professional, my life had become a never-ending cycle of goals and anxieties, dominated by a constant need to prove myself lest I be exposed as a fraud, not good enough, in the eyes of my peers, and of course, in the eyes of God. 

 

At the bottom of a deep, deep pit of my own making, I came face to face with the impossibility of earning lasting approval and acceptance.  As I began to understand the magnitude of God’s GRACE to me in Christ, I began also to understand that in entrusting my heart and soul to Jesus, I could permanently transcend this cycle of striving and failing to prove myself good enough...  

 

And so, I am no longer driven by the threat of being found wanting, by God, or by men.  Instead, I've found myself free to rely, utterly, on a God who has personally proven himself to be unfailingly good, present, and loving....

 

PEACE, amazingly, has become the dominant force in my everyday life.

 

So there it is.  God’s gift of Grace.  And its result - Peace.

 

ps – Ever notice how every single one of Paul’s letters includes the same benediction: “Grace and Peace” …….  The gift, and the result.