Beautiful Drowning

You done God any favors lately? Have you graced Him with your idolatry laden diatribe that you so piously call prayer? Have you graced Him with your illuminate presence at His house? Have you abhorrently shunned all evil, perceived or otherwise, with your zeal for His appeasement? Please, stop kidding yourself and get real.

Romans 12:3 (The Message)

I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all
that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to
you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that
you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God.
No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is
by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for
him.

Pure grace, what a novel concept.

Pure (pyoor) a. free from all extraneous matter; untainted; spotless; blameless; unsullied; chaste; innocent; absolute; theoretical, not applied.

The very unfortunate thing about Webster's definition is that it contains God's version and ours in the entry. It almost seems unjustified this way. We want to love and extend grace to our fellow man and His creation, but on our terms AND with strings attached. I don't think that strings come to mind when picturing something that is free from all extraneous matter. We have a head knowledge of this pure grace, but I'm afraid that our heart believes it's merely theoretical only and is not practical for application.

This is something that has laid heavy on me this week as I've read The Son of a Preacher Man by Jay Bakker. Yep, that's Jim and Tammy Faye's boy that had to endure the blazing firestorm that was the demise of the PTL in the late 80's. He's seen the ugly underbelly of a church (corporate) that believes whole heartedly in a God of pure grace, redemption and restoration as far as He relates to them, but it's not for practical application when called to extend that to His creation.

Don't dilute yourselves friends. We bring nothing that even resembles goodness to God. We do Him no favors through our shallow prayers, our presence in selfish worship and especially in our dismissal of those things or people who we judge to be under His punishment for their atrocities or their apparent unrighteousness.

Love absolutely, attempting to grant grace that is free, stringless and untainted. Do it because you were first granted this pure grace and not for any other reason. No other reason is valid.

Allow others to drown in His goodness on display through you, not by you and especially in spite of you. Allow others to experience this holy water in their lungs as you once did. This beautiful drowning...