Grace

I sit here this morning waiting for inspiration. I had not an idea on what to comment. Then it came to me: "You ungrateful person!" referring to me. I sit here 67 years old with, according to Dr. Reynolds, the "health of an eighteen year old" and the endurance of the same. All my life God has provided for  me. I have done without, but God gives us lessons to encourage us to strive. God has been good to me. Even my children are healthy and successful! But here I sit knowing that I have not shown the gratitude due God.

It's his divine will that as a Christian, I don't necessarily prosper, but that I have a good life. I don't believe in a gospel which teaches "live righteously to prosper", but that "if you live right for God you will prosper". The focus is on God, not me nor on you! Prosperity has little to do with having things; but having necessities, love, hope, happiness and even joy! Those things cannot be assigned a monetary value because they are beyond monetary value!

We are not to do things for personal material gain!

Matthew 10:24b "Ye cannot serve God and mammon."

If you do you are serving God and "self" and since you love yourself, it will be God you hate. Oh, you might give him lip service, but you are your own love. You are master of your own domain! "Mammon" does mean only "money", but doing things for personal "gain".

My point is that I don't DESERVE what I have. God has blessed me and loved me. He has given me a long life because I serve him, not the way I should for I'm a poor servant, but God knows that I desire to please him! On the other hand even when I fail him, and I do, he still loves me and gives me another chance. This is grace! This is God's grace!

Grace has been transliterated from charis. It seems there is a link here between "grace" and "charity". Indeed there is because "grace" is "charity"!

"Grace" is good will, loving-kindness, favour (of the merciful kindness by which God, exerting his holy influence upon souls, turns them to Christ, keeps, strengthens, increases them in Christian faith, knowledge, affection, and kindles them to the exercise of the Christian virtues." (Blue Letter Bible).

In common terms "grace" is receiving undeserved favor from God! We are to be Godly and Christlike! How do we do that? Since God has grace for us, we are to be graceful to others! I thank God for the grace he has shown me. Even my conception and birth is owed him. He is my Creator! Since I, as with Dr. Frankenstein, turned out to be a Monster. I'm the "Creator's Monster", but he "fixed" me when I was about fourteen. I was born again a new creations and now I'm special! I'm a child of God. I'm no longer a Monster although I still have the propensity to be if I don't keep close to my Creator!  Being recreated is God's grace. He didn't destroy me although his Monster went awry. He saved me from myself. He took away my meanness and rebellion and gave me a contrite heart. This former Monster wants to retain favor with my Creator because of his grace!

I owe others the same grace, even if they're Monsters too! Why not? God had grace for me when I was a Monster!

I still wrong people. I ask forgiveness and apologize. Some respond with grace. They forgive me because they know each of us have Monster tendencies which are suppressed only with communion with God. Sometimes we stray from communion and our strength is weakened. That's what Satan does to all of us; even that person who savors their own aroma. However, people have the audacity to judge others with a different metric than that with which they judge themselves because of the aroma of their own righteousness overpowering the stench within.

They pay lip service just as some do with God! They tell me (or you) "I forgive you, but you are no longer my friend!" They say they forgive, but then they withhold love. What if God did that to us? "I forgive you Larry, but I'm no longer your friend. I will be cordial with you, but don't take that for friendship! My grace has limits! It only goes so far. I no longer love you."

That would NOT b graceful of God and if that's how YOU "forgive" you may have a little too much of that "Monster" still in you that must be prayed out! If you love your friends that's certainly "good", but your metric is to "love your enemies"! That entails having grace yourself!  Look again at what grace is: "Undeserved favor to another" in this case. Sure, your enemy doesn't DESERVE your love, but because of your own shortcomings, you are to forgive them their shortcomings! Have you heard that before?

Matthew 6:14 "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:  15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."

Yes, those "trespasses" are own "shortcomings" and "forgiveness" is not lip-service; it's grace on the part of the one who pardons. It's "forgetting" the wrong we've been done, wiping the slate clean by forgetting about it, and loving the person. That's what God does for us! We are to do the same.

People sought to kill Dr. Frankenstein's Monster. He didn't need to die, but be "fixed" so that he would not only "obey", but love others. A Monster fixed by Frankenstein would be greatful for the "good" Doctor's grace and pass that along to others! If we hold onto petty grudges, the Monster will end up killing itself.