On any given night, I can be found waiting in line at one of our local restaurants here in town. From sandwiches to pizza, my family and I treat ourselves to local cuisine regularly. As luck would have it, one day I was waiting in line with my food at the checkout. When it came time for me to pay, the cashier said that the person in front of me had taken care of my order already. I had become a recipient of a recent phenomenon known as "paying it forward." Someone I had never met before decided to pay for my dinner that day.
This event got me contemplating the following question: isn't this what grace is supposed to be like? Simply defined, Biblical grace is an unmerited gift. We don't earn it in the same way we earn a paycheck for example, but rather we just accept it - the way we do with any gift freely given.
1 Cor 15:10 says, "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them - yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me." Here the apostle Paul is attempting to persuade his audience that even though he worked night and day to spread the message of Jesus Christ, it was God's grace that really motivated him.
The Methodist church recognizes three definitive types of grace. The first type is prevenient grace, or that grace which is prevalent all around us all of the time. The entire world depends on this type of gift, or else things would be a lot worse than we can currently imagine.
Second is justifying grace. This is when we accept Jesus into our lives and sin is forgiven. It is the bridge between our old life and our new redemption. This type of grace abounds when you hear people talk about being saved or born again. It is truly a special time in a new believer's life; full of joy and wonder.
The last kind is called sanctifying grace. This relates to our faith walk, and it can take decades. This is where God can really begin to work in our lives, because we have chosen to give up the old sinful way, and lean into pleasing Him through obedience and faith.
Occasionally, I hear stories from people who tell me they feel stuck. Maybe they have enjoyed God's justifying grace some time ago, but cannot seem to move on into the realm of sanctification. Their lives look the same now as it did then. For a select few Christians, I think this is simply the precursor to God promoting them on to something better. But for many who feel spiritually stagnant, I suspect it's because they haven't fully embraced God's help to turn from sin. There hasn't really been any repentance; no dying to self. So in effect, sanctification can feel like it has stalled out.
We must pay God's grace forward to others, regardless of where we are at personally in our faith walk. This is what the church is supposed to be doing - we are in the business of grace. If we put on community dinners and fund raisers but don't embody the love of Christ, then we are nothing more than a YMCA or a community center. The church is called to be something different. We are called to pay it forward.
Hebrews 4:16 says, "Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." Now please keep in mind, we may only capitalize on this grace because of what Jesus did. Our confidence in approaching God through prayer comes as a result of unmerited grace, freely given to you and I by a loving savior. Without Jesus, we dare not presume we are redeemed as-is.
One final thought. God's love runs deep, but we must not abuse it or take it for granted. There is an extremely popular idea going around many churches today wherein they only preach half of the Gospel message. In other words, the love of God is preached and taught - but not faith, repentance, or obedience.
Quite famously, Romans 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." The love of Christ does nothing less than meet us where we are at, but then you and I must make a choice. Christianity is not a passive religion ... salvation is not the default setting for the entire population. We must answer the door when Jesus knocks, and then let him in.
Keep seeking after the things of God, and if you are on the fence regarding whether or not to accept Christ, then let me be the first to say 'just do it.' Not tomorrow, or next week, or once you finally have all the answers ... but right now. In this way, God can pay it forward and begin the cycle anew.
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