Monthly Archives: April 2016

"What shall we say to all this grace-talk? Some foolishly say 'Shall we go on sinning that grace may abound?' I say of course not!" Romans 6:1

If you had a credit card that someone paid off for you every month, would you indulge every whim? Buy whatever you wanted? Spend without concern for the wisdom of the purchase?

Ummmm, probably. I would. I'm just being honest

Some people are suspicious of grace for this very reason. Paul's earliest opponents said "shall we go on sinning that grace many abound?" (Rom. 6:1). In other words, if God forgives everything then why not just live like the devil?

It's a great question because, in fact, God does forgive everything. There is nothing I can do that God will not forgive. He's already paid the balance due. The cross is a limitless reserve of grace. Grace already abounds more than sin. It's a fact.

So why do I need to "do" anything? What works do I bring to the table? What practical reason compels me to try to live a higher life?

Let's go back to the credit card illustration for a moment. Frankly, I probably would charge a whole bunch of stuff for quite a while. In other words, I can "go on sinning." But at some point I'm going to realize that nothing I buy gives me what I need or really want. Every thoughtful wealthy person has been saying this for the last 3-4 thousand years. Money can't buy you love.

God appears to have decided that grace will end up having the same effect on the soul. A self-centered life eventually collapses under its own weight. Sin doesn't give us what we really want or need. God forgives because He knows the pull of grace is greater than the pull of sin, and that some day we'll likely awaken to that plain face. He knows that grace accomplishes what law never can. We can't work our way into the kingdom. This is God's huge gamble. He's all in on grace.

The notion that the grace-life inevitably leads to lazy, indulgent Christians simply doesn't do justice to the New Testament. Jesus implored to ask, seek, and knock. He warned us away from bad fruit and told us to produce good fruit. He even plainly said that He did not come to abolish the law. Actions are important to Jesus. We're not to lounge on the altar waiting for God to work out everything and wipe the slate clean. We don't only hear Jesus' words. We DO them.

Paul was equally clear. This apostle of an outrageous grace also wrote that we are to work out our own salvation and that we are created for good works. He exhorted us to avoid the works of the flesh. I could go on and on. The point is, no New Testament writer even remotely suggested a laissez-faire approach to spiritual matters.

So what is my proper response to this wonderful grace? What do I do?

First, I make a decision to agree with God. I make the same gamble He did. It's grace, from first to last. That means I give up the notion of trying to impress Him or gain more of His favor. I stop treating my relationship with God like a contract where I must have every t crossed and every i dotted in order for Him to answer my prayers.

Taking the gamble means that I'm going to regard others with patience, kindness, tolerance, and love even when they're unworthy of or resistant to each one. After all, what use is it to love only the loveable? If I want to really experience the gamble of grace then I have to go all in with the ones who don't deserve it.

Taking the gamble also means that am patient, kind, tolerant, and loving of myself. This sounds horribly self-indulgent but in doing this I'm simply agreeing with God. Giving grace to everyone else while withholding it from myself is a form of hypocrisy. Learning to offer grace to yourself is the only way to quiet the self-critical voice most of us have clamoring away inside our heads.

My second response to grace is to engage in the kind of life that allows grace to flow freely.

For years I have struggled to grow grass in my backyard. I've used the recommended fertilizers, fungicides, and weed-killers. I've re-sodded the entire backyard, and half of it again. Yet every summer I watched the slow death of my precious St. Augustine.

This spring, however, I cut down trees that blocked too much sunlight. Six big trees are gone that were too close to the house anyway. I pruned others. The backyard now gets full sun at least half the day and the grass is absolutely taking over.

My spiritual work in response to God's grace means pruning away things that block the sunlight of the Spirit. This includes overt sins that clearly don't honor God, and the bad habits of the mind that cloud my thinking. I pray, worship, read, and meditate because they create a spiritual warmth that comes from within. I let God be God, and resist the temptation to control Him or treat Him like an equation or concierge.

I have to admit there are times when the gamble doesn't seem to pay off. People don't act like I want them to, or I don't get my way, and I'm tempted to fall back into a chest-thumping legalism. But if I just stay in the game, then I "feel" God say to me "I love you, and I'm with you."

Then I know the gamble is worth it.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis

April 24, 2016

"Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night?" Job 35:10

The following is for my 16-year-old granddaughter, who's only 3 right now.

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night,Take these broken wings and learn to fly, All your life, You were only waiting for this moment to arise

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night, Take these sunken eyes and learn to see. All your life, You were only waiting for this moment to be free.

"Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly, into the light of a dark black night."

Paul McCartney

Dear Emily Grace,

When you were little, you knew and loved all the typical childhood songs: Baa Baa Blacksheep, Muffin Man, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, etc. You sang them all with the delightful enthusiasm of new discovery. Repeatedly. You excelled at the encore. Repeatedly.

Wanting to add to your repertoire, one day I sang for you the old Beatles song Blackbird, and you loved it. Maybe it was the choreography I adlibbed. We flapped like a blackbird, and opened our eyes wide to see. This became one of your favorites, and we played it, no surprise here, repeatedly. I cherish the memory of turning my rearview mirror down just a bit so we could watch each other sing and flap and see while I drove.

Now that you've firmly entered the turbid waters of female adolescence I want you to know why I sang that song for you and why I'm so glad it became one of your favorites. You need right now what this song is about, and though I've doubtless talked to you about it over the years I want you to have in writing what I want you to glean from it.

First, let's just establish the importance of meaning and interpretation. Some texts, lyrics, stories, poems, songs, paintings are imbued with deep meaning. They call to you, and invite you to a deeper, or higher, life. You'll have to seek this out, for you live in a world that too often shouts its superficiality. God, who wonderfully made you, created in you a need for significance that shouting will never fulfill. Finding places and times to be still and listen and watch is vital. The very good news is that you'll always find what you're truly looking and listening for. Always. Good or bad. Deep or shallow. I hope you always make time to look for the divine shimmering around you and listen for the song of eternity. Seek these.

Now back to the song. Singing birds are wondrous, but how often do you hear a blackbird singing in the dead of night? Never. I suppose there might be some obscure specie that sings at midnight, but certainly not the typical blackbird. They sing to the sunrise and throughout the day.

But the blackbird in the song is singing in the dead of night. Why? Because it needed to, of course. It sings like it's the dawn even though its surrounded by darkness. It does what it was created to do in spite of the darkness.

The same idea applies to the broken wings. Frankly, I've never known a bird to fly with broken wings. In nature, I'm afraid that's the end of the bird. But our brave bird learns to fly even when it appears impossible. And he learns to see even with sunken (unseeing) eyes.

Sometimes, Emily Grace, your wings will get broken. You won't achieve the heights you dreamed of, and you might not feel like there's any use in trying. You'll be tempted to sit in your nest, in the dark, and "beweep your outcast state." Many people do.

What I want for you, dear Emily Grace, is to be the blackbird. Don't let broken wings, sightless eyes, or a dark black night keep you from being the daughter your heavenly Father created you to be. Yes, the dark black nights are real and sometimes terrifying, but they don't define you or determine your destiny. God has already done that. He has given you the ability to see His light even in the frightening gloom. With faith and trust in this smiling God you'll be able to sing, and fly, and see.

This is not easy. Even our blackbird struggled for quite a while, for he had waited for this moment to arrive and to be free. You likely will have many occasions where the evidence for goodness, love, and grace looks pretty thin, or even damning. Doubt will keep you nest-bound. But there will come a moment of clarity when you will decide to be done with lesser things and summon the courage to try to fly even when everyone around you is shouting for you to give it up. God loves this kind of courage! Only by taking the risk, again and again, will you learn that you never lost your ability to fly.

One final thing. God has a delightful habit of peeking out at us from unlikely places. He winks and smiles as if to say "I'm always here, and this is just a little reminder." The reminder might be that story, poem, or painting I mentioned earlier. Or it might be a sunrise, or the stars, or a flower. It could be this little essay written by your grandfather many years ago. Maybe this is what you needed to get you out of the nest and flying and singing again. Fact is, God surrounds us with reminders. Be one who sees the light and hears the songs in the night.

Long ago I saw the joy in your eyes. It is a gift from God, and you will learn to cherish it and share it (which is the only way it grows). Trust me, people need your joy. Remember it, and fly.

Grace,

Gandy

April 17, 2016

 

"Jesus told them a story showing that it was necessary for them to pray consistently and never quit." Luke 18:1

Prayer for many people is exasperating. Passages such as Mark 11:24 boldly promise that whatever we ask, we will receive if we believe. Yet in practice that simply is not the case, the prayer in Gethsemane serving as exhibit A. Closer to home, every deathbed, conflict, and heartbreak is likely the subject of earnest pleas for God's intercession, yet so often the exact opposite of this sincere, believing prayer comes to pass. The loved one dies. The tensions persist. The pain lingers. Doubts arise.

Now I say all of this as a firm believer in prayer. I believe prayer merges me more deeply into the life and mind of God, and that merging enables me to be an active part of "Thy will be done." Something happens when I pray! I can't explain it, or pin it down, or even predict what will happen, but prayer releases a kind of divine energy.

That image, in fact, fits in perfectly with the Hebrew idea of the power of the spoken word. God spoke and there was light and land and seas, and all of creation. Isaac mistakenly blessed Jacob and the course was irrevocably set. Prayer is like that. A word spoken to God never disappears into the void. Something happens. It doesn't always make linear sense, but I choose to keep believing and keep praying even when I don't get my way, and even when that frustrates me.

Prayer will always retain its mystery, even for the deepest saints among us. Acknowledging that is, I think, one of the cornerstones for a solid theology of prayer. You won't figure it out, but don't let that mute your prayers.

So having acknowledged the questions, let's seek some firm answers. Two words are helpful to most people when it comes to prayer: perseverance and personal.

The parable of the persistent widow and the unjust judge (Luke 18:1-6) is vivid and usually completely misapplied. Jesus told of a widow who was being treated unfairly. She had a legitimate grievance, but absolutely no power or persuasion. After all, she was simply a poor widow.

She took her case to the judge of the city, but unfortunately he was corrupt, accepting bribes and doling out "justice" in ways that benefitted him. The widow's adversary probably enjoyed a certain privilege and expected the judgement to go his way. This was the way of the ancient world. What nether party counted on, however, was the persistence of the widow who simply would not take no as an answer. She continually bothered the judge, and to shut her up he ruled in her favor.

At his point most people take the meaning of the parable and turn it completely on its head. We wrongly imagine that God is somehow like the judge and that we must persist if we expect Him to grant us our pleas. Jesus meant the exact opposite.

The parable does not invite comparison but contrast. The judge was both uncaring and unrighteous. God is neither. So we have a tremendous advantage of a God who is already on our side, so to speak. He wants to hear our pleas. He wants to be involved in our "case." My persistence, therefore, is not an effort to wear down God, but a simple acceptance of the fact that God's providence is a slow unveiling, and I want to be a part of it.

The alternative, of course, is to give up on prayer, and that many people do. If you have done that I plead that you review your verdict for a few minutes. To fling away from prayer means to embrace what? That we are alone? Or on our own? We've already acknowledged the sometimes frustrating nature of prayer, but let's not overlook the fact that prayer is a boundless comfort to countless believers. I don't believe prayer is a delusion. Something happens when I pray, so I will keep on praying.

The second word is personal, and I mean here that prayers need to be a loving God. Jesus drove home this point in many ways. He told us to address God as Father. He said God already knows what we need. I think He means that God's knowledge of what I need already doesn't render my prayers unnecessary, but more effective. I pray because God wants to be involved in my life.

I want to suggest another way we can make prayers personal: write them. Write your own prayers. I have begun doing this occasionally for the last couple of years. It's helpful for me to have a written prayer because "free praying" can become very unfocused and subjects me to more distractions.

I've written a morning prayer and an evening prayer. I have a prayer for when I'm fearful. I wrote a prayer of blessing for my family. Trust me, it's not hard and it certainly does not need to be long or impressive. It simply needs to be a personal expression of your desires for the day, your gratitude, your confession. Write it as if you are speaking to Someone who loves you beyond imagination, for that is precisely what you are doing when you pray.

I hope you'll pray. In fact, I'll conclude with a GraceWaves prayer for you: Father, thank you for giving me this forum to think and write about the most wonderful truths. Thank you for everyone who takes time to read these words. May they hear You and feel your love, grace, and peace always. And this week especially may we all pray to You, knowing that you love us and respond because of Your love. Amen

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis

April 3, 2016