Amazing Grace

I know I haven't written in a while. October and November are kind of make-or-break months for new teachers, and writing got pushed to the back corner as I attempted to survive. I made it to Thanksgiving break, though! And there's no other reason for my survival than the very title of this post. 

So here I am popping up again to tell you about grace.

You see, I've been struggling with grace because it is difficult for me to grant grace to myself. As I panicked and fought through my second six weeks of teaching, I started to recognize thought patterns of unforgiveness and hatred toward me. Coworkers even commented on my self-hating speech. I was crying out for help. 

Of course, this affected the way I saw the kids. When I was short-tempered with me, I was short-tempered with them. When I was meditating on God's love toward me, I was overflowing with love for my students.

It seems obvious, right? But this internal vacillation between gripe and grace is pretty normal in a fallen world. Too often, we look at ourselves with our own eyes rather than His. We make our failures huge and His grace very small. I think the reason we do this is because we don't really understand grace. 

I know that biblical "grace" means "unmerited favor"--not only that God does not destroy us because of our sin, but that He goes above and beyond to extend favor and authority and blessing to people who utterly, truly do not deserve it. It goes beyond merciful salvation and into the promises of abundance in God's kingdom. Mercy would be a parent holding back his hand before he slaps a misbehaving child; grace is the same hand being extended for a hug or a present to the same little brat. 

Most people would consider that to be bad parenting. However, the same people would also say that a Toddlers in Tiaras mom or a super-competitive sports dad demanding perfection from his or her child is also a bad parent. (Yet that's what they expect from God, who has been a dad for waaaaayyy longer than they could imagine...like since the beginning of time.) Grace does not deflect natural consequences for bad behavior, but it does allow the irrevocable right to join the family of God for eternity. It's not sterile, bureaucratic police authority; it's flesh-and-blood parental authority. It's an adoption sealed in blood that legally transfers the rights of a Son onto the adopted party, regardless of how sinful or weak that person is. 

So I had the scholarly definition down, but that didn't change how I was condemning myself every day for being imperfect at work as well as in my personal life. Basically, I was my own psycho stage mom. Nothing was good enough for me. So because I was struggling with the concept of grace, I asked the greatest Teacher of all what He wanted me to know about it. 

I am still listening, but I wanted to share what He told me so far.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. --Philippians 2:4-11

Talk about the totality of authority. EVERY knee shall bow, and EVERY tongue shall confess His name. But the aim of this passage isn't Christ's authority. It's about the servitude, humility, and obedience of Jesus--which are made that much more unbelievable because He had so much authority. 

Obedience, servitude, humility, and sacrifice are not words that we like to talk about in our Bible studies. But Jesus reminded me of them the other day when I asked. These qualities bear the nature and character of grace. 

God Himself came to earth and served us, even to the point of a humiliating and excruciating death. 

He told me to think about when He washed the disciples' feet, which seemed pretty random until I really read it and thought about it. (It's in John 13 if you want to check it out.)

Jesus told Peter, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand." (Story of my life.) They didn't get it. They were thinking in the world's economy. Jesus was greater, therefore He should have his feet washed, not them. Peter cried, "You shall never wash my feet." (Save the drama for your mama, bro.)

Or, as John the Baptist put it, "I am not worthy to untie His sandal." It seems like, initially, Jesus couldn't win with these guys: John wouldn't dunk Him in water, and Peter wouldn't let Him dunk his feet in water. Nobody was willing to get wet. Both were submitting to a worldly ideology: honor should be surrendered to the more honorable party.

Right?

But that is not the attitude of grace. Grace says that the greater shall serve the lesser. (Ever read about Jacob and Esau?) Grace is a powerful person with legal authority surrendering his rights to serve someone who has no power and no authority. God's grace extends even beyond that. In His death on the cross, He surrendered His rights as a son and heir. In His resurrection, He got them back--and conferred them to you and me. It was the greatest act of service of all time.

Wipe your brains off the wall, because I know your head just exploded. 

Jesus told Peter, "If I do not wash you, you have no share with me." He meant, "If I don't serve you, you cannot receive my grace. If you cannot receive my grace, you cannot come into my kingdom."

In other words, serving others isn't true obedient service if you think that you're a piece of junk. True service involves sacrifice. People who think they are a piece of junk have no problem serving because they already think they are less than other people anyway. They're not sacrificing anything. In fact, they're just confirming a negative identity they already believe in. But a gracious person knows who he is and what authority he holds, and he serves anyway. 

Once again....#mindblown.

The Person of Grace--Jesus Christ--knew He was the Son of God. He never had a doubt about it. But He chose to wash feet and die on a cross for people who were beyond undeserving. It seems ridiculous in the world's economy. Not only was it the greatest act of service of all time, it was the greatest sacrifice of all time.

And that gets me to the main point.

If service is the action of unconditional love, grace is the attitude of unconditional love. Grace chooses to honor those who are considered less worthy of honor. In fact, grace delights to honor outcasts, rejected orphans, failures, screw-ups, those lacking in every refinement, the dirty, the broken, the weak, people with snot coming out of their noses and mean words coming out of their mouths.

What's more....

It's trite but true: you can't give what you can't receive. If you're in Peter's position, proclaiming that Jesus will NEVER EVER NOT IN A MILLION YEARS wash your feet, you have no part in His kingdom. His gracious sacrifice is what gave YOU the right to enter as a son or daughter.

When He washed His disciples' feet, Jesus said, "For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you." He went on to say, "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me." There seems to be a lot of reception there, as well as a commandment (reiterated by Jesus throughout the gospels) to serve one another. The only way to truly serve others is with an attitude of grace. And you can't have an attitude of grace if you can't receive His grace toward you.

You know why? Because His grace--His greatest act of service--conferred upon you the rights and authority that He has. And if you cannot receive that service, you cannot receive that new identity as "Son" or "Daughter," heir of power and authority in the kingdom of God. And if you can't accept that honored position, you cannot choose to step down from honor and become a servant. If you believe yourself to be un-honorable, your service means nothing. Your service and sacrifice are only as valuable as you are. 

So my self-condemnation and stage mom antics are not only a slap in the face to Jesus' sacrifice of service, they're a direct insult to the attitude of His heart and the nature of His person. 

I'm still trying to grasp it. All I know is, I have been honored with the commission to serve children--the class of people most often rejected and discounted by the world, those considered the most helpless and least deserving of favor. In the world's economy, children are a burden or annoyance, if they're not outright disgusting. The world says they are valuable not for what they are, but for what they could be. Grace says that what they are is worthy of honor. 

I think God compares us to children for a reason.

If I show my kids honor by serving them, putting them before myself (even though many times their behavior makes them completely undeserving), I am acting with an attitude of grace. And that's one way that, like Jesus, I can look just like my Dad.

Sacrifice and service both start with grace. While sacrifice and service are in your hands, grace is in your heart.

I'll close with this: that yes, grace is an attitude that motivates action. But grace is also a person.  Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17). If you want to know grace, just ask Him who He is.