GOD’S GRACIOUS TIMELINE

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Believing in the grace of God includes believing that it came to us at the right time. In kindness, Jesus offers us the lifeline just when we want and need it—neither too soon, when we would have scoffed at rescue, nor too late, when we would have been completely sunk. 

If we imagine we would have welcomed grace much earlier, we underestimate our own deceitful hearts—and underestimate God’s deft and flawless timing. 
God’s grace is always right on time—at just the point we finally agree how lost we were and how found we are. 

No longer fret in vain regret:  your grace arrived when you were ready for it. 

So stay in grace.

Read more at: https://adventistreview.org/gracenotes/gods-gracious-timeline/

GRACE-BECOME-US

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The mind in which grace lights a flame becomes, in time, a different mind. 
By nature and by nurture, we’re self-absorbed and focused on what brings us gain, what brings us fame. The path of least resistance leads us to our touted rights, and often—yes—our touted righteousness. We are the measure of all things: we sort and filter for what gives us points, what gives us power, what adds to our advantage. 

But when the grace of a supremely other-centered God breathes through the “heats of our desire,” the self-absorption starts to wane, and we begin to be the kinder, wiser souls we’ve sometimes ached to be. 

We hear the broken, and remember we were broken, too. We see the wounded, and we search for bandages of love. We touch the hurting with a gentleness learned from the Healer who never, ever hurries. 

Grace turns us from unhelpful fools into new humans, wise and warm. The grace that saves us also makes us gracious. 

So stay in grace.

Read more at: https://adventistreview.org/gracenotes/grace-become-us

FREELY RECEIVED AND GLADLY GIVEN

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Until we grasp how much we’ve been forgiven, it will always seem unwise and difficult to forgive those who sin against us. 
When we forgive another person, we abandon our leverage over them; release the debt they owe us; throw open prison doors. This is a graciousness we can’t summon from within: until we’ve received God’s grace, we have none to give to others. You can’t wring kindness from a stone, or from a stony, unforgiven heart. 

But “the grace of God has appeared to all” (Titus 2:11), making possible our own redemption, and then the healing of our friendships, marriages, and communities. 

Grace truly received always becomes grace given. 

So stay in grace. 

Read more at: https://adventistreview.org/gracenotes/freely-received-and-gladly-given/

RELEASED FROM FEAR

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RELEASED FROM FEAR

Fear builds around us prisons only we can see. We peer out through the bars of damaged memories and foolish choices—walled in by concrete years of dark regrets. And we assume the sentence is for life. 
But then one day there is a rattling at the door; keys open up a rusty lock. The cell in which we kept ourselves more rigidly than any jail is opened by a word of grace. “Your sins are forgiven you,” says the Lord who vowed to open every prison door. 

The sentence is commuted, and yes, the record is expunged. “As far as the east is from the west so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Ps 103:12). 

We walk out in the light of grace—amazed at freedom we have never known, and breathing in the oxygen of hope. This is the genius of the gospel, and why this story always liberates. 

Walk out of fear, but stay in grace.

Read more at: https://adventistreview.org/gracenotes/released-from-fear/

GRACE AND RISK

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GRACE AND RISK

This baby born in Bethlehem was both like and unlike every other child —a life so rare, so richly valuable, that still we grope at language’s edge for words to tell His story, and for names by which to worship Him. 

He chose fragility, this Lord who once threw stars and galaxies around like pebbles on a beach, so that the powerless would know how well He understands their lives.
He entered our dry dustiness where weakness and reliance meet—because grace trusts, grace hopes, grace makes new covenants when all about us are breaking theirs.  

He chose dependence—releasing Himself, abandoning authority, the majesty, the throne.  

Christ placed Himself quite literally in our hands, so that—through grace—we might one day learn to place ourselves entirely in His.  

Stay in His hands. And stay in grace.

Read more at: https://adventistreview.org/gracenotes/grace-and-risk/

UNMERITED

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UNMERITED

We search—in vain—for things in us that might cause God to gift us grace. 

It couldn’t be our good behavior; perhaps our good intentions? Perhaps our hot/cold love for God on one day stirred Him to extend the mercy we must have?
No; no; and no. Grace has no market counterpart—no trade, no barter, no equivalence. It’s Jesus’ sovereign choice to give us what we didn’t earn, we don’t deserve, and on bad days, we even spurn. 

Our only claim on Christ is on His unforced choice to love those He created; sacrificed Himself to save; and ever intercedes for. Rejoice, oh heavens! Be amazed, oh earth! 

And stay in grace.



Read more at: https://adventistreview.org/gracenotes/unmerited/

GRACE FOR PRODIGALS

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GRACE FOR PRODIGALS

“I once was found, but now am lost;

Had sight, but now am blind.”
Does grace still reach for us when we walk—or run—away from goodness? When we turn our backs toward home and seek amusements in a far country?

Nothing could be clearer than that Jesus is the Lord of second chances. When we have traded gold for trash, and walked away from all that’s holy, just, and good, we are—amazing!—not only eligible to return, but wrapped in welcome when we do.

Grace doesn’t wait on the front porch until the prodigal comes home. Grace follows him through every bad choice, each wasted opportunity until homesickness happens.

“I will arise and go to my Father,” we say, afraid the grace we knew might have been drained while we were gone. But then we feel the Father’s arms around us; we find how well the Father’s robe still fits; we taste the Father’s food in our mouths. And we can’t deny—or ever fully understand—the love that will not let us go.

“And grace will lead me home.”

Read more at: https://adventistreview.org/gracenotes/grace-for-prodigals/

WHEN EVERYTHING CHANGES

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Our pledges of good behavior are only as good as the people who make them—which is to say, not good at all.  The litter of our broken promises to change, reform, and improve ourselves stretches back like resolutions at the end of January. 

      And we aim too low. We have in mind trying to suppress our angry words. Christ has in mind an entirely new vocabulary grounded in the knowledge that we—and all others—are deeply loved by Him. 

      We imagine chocolates as the foible we intend to fix. Jesus knows that fear is at the root of all our failing—fear of the Father, of each other, of the future. And so His first word to us at every moment of doubt and discouragement is an assurance of His care:  “You can stop being afraid now.”  

      Grace always meets us where we are, but never leaves us where we were. The greatest and most joyful change is lived by those who most receive the gift of grace. 

      So stay in grace.

Read more at: https://adventistreview.org/gracenotes/when-everything-changes/WHEN EVERYTHING CHANGES

Read more at: https://adventistreview.org/gracenotes/when-everything-changes/

ALWAYS AMAZING

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ALWAYS AMAZING

Fast-forward, if you can, to scenes our hearts are aching to be in. Redeemed at last from all the brokenness, the pettiness, the pain of earthly life, we stand before the throne with those from every nation, tribe, and people, breathing in the air of heaven and singing at the top of our lungs, “Salvation belongs to our God” (Rev 7:10).
Does even one hand go up to get the Lord’s attention? — “I need to be sure my good deeds are recorded, that my sacrifice is written down somewhere.”

“Preposterous,” you say—and right you are. It’s simply unimaginable that anyone who’s covered by the blood of Jesus would take some credit for a rescue owing just to Him. So why is it we now persist in counting up our virtues? Isn’t it evidence enough that we too often fail to grasp the overwhelming, undergirding goodness of our God?

Grace is better than we first believed, more sweeping than we now believe, more joyous than we’ll ever believe. Put down your hand. Lift up your voice. The grace will always be amazing.

So stay in grace.

Read more at: https://adventistreview.org/gracenotes/always-amazing/

BAPTIZE US ANEW

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Every day beside the Jordan, can you hear the “hallelujahs”? Can you hear the joy of angels in their vast, euphoric choir as you give your life—again—to Jesus and walk down into the water? 

Can you feel the hug of heaven as you leave your past behind you—leave your sins and all your merits, held by grace and grace alone? 

Can you hear the words cascading: “This one’s Mine, My lovely child, of whom I’m so greatly proud”? Do you sense the great affection of the Father who will not be turned away by sin—in your past, your now, your future? 

Ah, the washing, the renewing that restores a dry disciple! Spend some moments, washed and steadied, in the sand beside the river, hearing heaven’s affirmation of your choice to follow Jesus. 

Jordan’s bank is sacred space. Come here often: stay in grace.

Read more at: https://adventistreview.org/gracenotes/baptize-us-anew/