As I reflected on the gift of grace in Part 2 a bit more, I felt like there were a couple of additional important points that needed to be highlighted. Here is Part 2.1! We’ll talk about the importance of receiving grace and the regifting of grace.
Receiving Grace
It’s Christmastime. I imagine some of us will have a friend or family member send us a gift from afar. In most cases, we will likely receive the gift, love it, and call the friend to thank them for it. However, in other cases, we may not receive the gift because it gets lost in transit, for example, or maybe those pesky porch pirates steal it. Whatever the case and despite all the good intentions of the sender, we end up never receiving the gift even though we know we were supposed to.
I think sometimes we can treat the gift of grace the same way as the physical gift that gets lost in transit. With the physical gift, we go about our days knowing and believing we are supposed to get the gift, but we never actually receive it. It’s lost somewhere between there and here, so we don’t get to enjoy the gift that was intended for us. Instead, we are thankful for the sender’s sweet gesture and good intention.
Similarly with the gift of grace, we can know and believe in God’s grace in our minds, but we don’t (or sometimes can’t) actually receive that grace in our hearts. It’s lost somewhere in between the two, so we don’t get to enjoy the gift that was intended for us. Whether we realize it or not, we are then in a place where we are thankful for Jesus’ “sweet gesture” and “good intention” related to the cross and not fully enjoying the gift He died to give us.
Jesus did not die simply as a sweet gesture for humanity or because He had good intentions. No. He died out of complete, unconditional love and with great purpose, and that purpose is to save us by grace through faith in Him. When He died for us, He nailed all of our sins to the cross He hung on!
He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. Colossians 2:14 NLT
It’s important for us to explore with Holy Spirit why we don’t or can’t receive God’s gift of grace. There could be many different or even related reasons for the barrier, but there is undoubtedly a lie somewhere that needs to be uprooted and renounced and replaced with the truth.
For me, for example, I was trapped in a religious mindset of perfectionism and performance and believed I could never do enough or be enough to earn His forgiveness. This made it all about me. When I finally heard the truth of the gospel and had the revelation that grace has everything to do with Jesus and absolutely nothing to do with me, I was finally able to truly receive His grace. I then knew the truth, and the truth set me free (John 8:32).
Regifting Grace
In my initial post in this series, I talked about regifting. I am a fan, and I fully support regifting! And since we have established that grace is a gift, it’s important to realize that it is a gift eligible for regifting. In fact, we are instructed to regift grace:
32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. Ephesians 4:32
For all the grace our Good Lord has given us, we are called to regift that same grace to others. I realize that is sometimes easier said than done. What is easy for God in all His perfection and unconditional love can be more difficult for us in the flesh. That doesn’t change the command, though. God rarely – if ever – asks us to do the easy thing.
What we have to remember is that forgiving someone doesn’t excuse what they did. Rather, it excuses us from the equation and leaves that person in the hands of God. It frees us from the consequences of unforgiveness (and there are many!), and it leaves that person and any consequences to God. We forgive to free ourselves, not the other person.
And by the way … and I say this from a place I once knew all too well … we have to be mindful of regifting grace to OURSELVES. We often build prison walls of unforgiveness of self, step in, lock the cell door, and plop ourselves right down in the middle of it like we’re supposed to be there.
Nooooo! No, no, no! When we are sons and daughters of The King, we are not meant to be locked away in prison cells of our own making! Jesus came to set the captives free (John 8:36), and if we are His, we are free and forgiven by way of grace. If the God of the universe can forgive us, surely we can forgive ourselves.
Regift His grace and be free today!
Leave a Reply