Day 3597 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Peter 4:10 NIV

To have been so assured and insured that our hope were and will continue to overflow, as such they are, is to bestow an invitation as to the extending of the same grace as has been given in place of that first that He gave.

For grace is but an open door. It’s a revolving reverence. It’s a gift given meant then to be given away. Grace is this place to which we go that runs along the outskirts of both Heaven and here, asking us that we might invite the delight to walk this line between mercy and madness as blurred so violently within a humanity that needs the former because of their fondness for the latter. Yes, grace is a gift so God-given that it both settles the matter and then further unravels whatever we once thought to matter more.

Because when stood face-to-face with forgiveness, what’s a soul to do but to break down in empathy for the others around who may likely be as of yet unable to see what God’s given them.

All because we’re not taught to see such things in this life. We’re not encouraged to wonder as to the likes of mercy or compassion. In fact, it seems that the more we come to need such gifts only inspires this deepened rejection of them as if we can prove them to be of such abstraction that we can rightly consider them the detraction that our ego demands they be. For our arrogance and vanity know no other way than to decline to delight in anything that asks anything in the way of gratitude or growth.

Such things are supposedly not supposed to happen around here.

Making then God’s grace seem even more profound than anything else we’ve found inside the lies preferred by pride that have left us blind to everything from belief to benevolence. And despite this being such heartbreaking evidence of our preference for pride over piety, that it is is what it is. And what it is is anymore the standard assumption of all mankind. This idea that we can prove we don’t need what we know we cannot live without, it’s become unto us the only prize worth pursuing.

Leaving us standing in the court of eternity amidst a lawsuit we cannot win before a Judge we cannot bribe against a mountain of evidence we’ve stacked against ourselves that we thus cannot overcome because of a bigger pile of lies that we cannot provide any logic or reason or even reality to thanks to our having lived by and for and in and of every single one of them for as long as we’ve been here.

Yes, we are here in what is a loss no mind can fathom, and yet somehow still we’re of this consideration that we can change opinions and overcome condemnations and speak to the choices that we’ve chased as to having not been as lowly and losing as we’ve known to them to be. And yet as we look up from what is a verdict so assured that we most days dare not look at anything but our feet, when we do look toward His something new, what we see is less of what we deserve and more of only what only He has decided to do.

Which is the giving of grace.

But, while this is a word so stuck inside the common vernacular of human speech, especially in regard to the realm of religion and thus the pursuit of a purer righteous thought, something that we indeed hear all the time around here, the question could and perhaps should be considered: What is grace? Is it even something we know to consider it as? Is it but another cliché used and abused trying to hide the signs of abuse won at these hands of ours against ourselves? Is it a simplicity the sort of honesty or more the monstrosity of such things as humility?

What is grace and why’s it such a big deal?

Well, as always, let us start this perusal from the definition. And as defined, grace is “unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification, a virtue coming from God, a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine assistance.” It’s further defined as a matter of “approval or favor” such as “mercy, pardon or privilege” as in the idea of a reprieve which is a word that brings to mind such ideas as a stay of execution. It’s a relenting. It’s a forgiving. It’s a giving of leniency where only such things as anger and wrath ought to be.

It’s also considered something used as a reference to title or position as used often in regard to royalty. And thus, so too does it display a sense of honor, of regality, of nobility even. Indeed, within the verb form of the word, grace is to “confer dignity or honor” upon someone. It’s a matter of adornment, of embellishment, of the establishment of the bestowment of an air of betterment upon a person, place or thing. Or in this case, it’s God bestowing upon us, His people, the air of betterment as won in comparison to this place from which Christ came to lead us out via this thing we call surrender.

Yes, grace is an open door, an agreement to loss, a surrender of sorts, especially as seen inside the kind that chose the grave.

In other words it was God’s choice to understand fully what we’ve done and thus all we deserve and to yet relent, to offer reprieve, to at first bestow us with rebuke so as to inspire in us a renewed reverence for His kindness as met fully inside this grace that chose the grave to empty the sin of all humanity so that all of humanity might find in Him the necessity of humility as needed to understand the gravity of His having chosen grace when He had, and has still, no rhyme or reason to do so.

Grace is God meeting us where He shouldn’t have to come in order to remind of us that we don’t belong here either.

And yet, now that we have been so met, what do we do now? What do we do now that we’re left here walking within what is wave upon wave of grace given in place of grace already gave? What are we to do, to say, to share or see that would show Him that we get what we’ve been given? How can we offer now any evidence of this sense of betterment as brought about by He who bought our souls with His blood in order to bring around our hearts to not accepting the deception that they’ve become known for, and in fact so known for that our hearts are what testify against us in this court in which guilt is met with grace?

Well, what might His point or purpose have been in giving us this gift? What might God have saw fit to inspire us to do to so perspire to purchase this pursuit of so much grace that not even the grave could so contain His will for our lives? Yes, what is His will for our lives now that we know what all it took to achieve our renewed chance to be everything we’ve never been anywhere close to being before? What is so amazing in us or ahead of us that it inspired Him to do all He’s done to overcome still the entirety of all we do that shouldn’t be done?

What is His will as won within the grave wherein He bought such a grace that it comes still in waves?

Might it be for us to share our overflow as found and felt in cups flooded to over-filled with opportunity as held in the objectivity of His divine glory? Are we not to share His mercy in whatever ways we may? Is this not what this here verse has to say? That we’re to use whatever gifts we’re given to the betterment of the rest of this human settlement? Is it not meant to inspire us with the inspiration that we ourselves continue to receive?

Or we just supposed to keep this all to ourselves?

Sadly, such is the assumption as shared amongst most anymore. Because that’s what happens in a world where “looking out for #1” is such a widely acceptable outlook. But why? What is the benefit if only one benefits? What can any achievement mean if it only means something to me? Does one person living a more lavish or luxurious life prove the effort given unto the unashamed selfishness needed to so accomplish the outcome of only the one being improved?

Is there anything at all in Scripture that points anywhere near the pursuit of selfishness?

Or is it not far more concerned with surrender?

For again, is not grace a surrender of sorts? For God had and still has every reason to not offer us anything. We give Him daily every excuse needed to destroy us. Personally speaking, I can sit here inside what is a closet of honesty typing away on a laptop perched atop a shoebox and confess that I can think of a single sin repeated so many times over the past 20-25 that I have absolutely no way to make the case that He has been the lone priority in my life.

And that’s just person referring to one sin that I’ve been so kindly helped to recognize as sin.

What about all the others, both sins and souls? What about all we’ve done that we don’t even remember? What about all those times we become so consumed inside ourselves that we don’t even care to remember others, people or problems? And within this world so wrapped up in denial, is this not what we know best to do? And yet, is this what is best to do?

In light of grace?

Or is grace not meant to instead meet us in this place with the purpose of leading us to something better? Did Jesus storm into that tomb in order for us to stay the same? Or is not such a grace meant to so overwhelm our normality that it utterly destroys our inability to imagine anything else? Is grace not but an open door to a kindness we’ve never imagined before? And would He have chosen to open that door if we weren’t supposed to at least step to the edge and look in?

And by looking into grace, are we not asked to look out of our graves as carved of things we’ve done and wanted and won? And if we have to look away from what’s normal here, are we not then to risk becoming an abnormality as compared to the rest of society? And as we welcome this opportunity to be an abnormality, can we just walk by and not try to help others with their maladies?

Again, is grace something given only to one? Or rather did not the One decide to offer it unto all?

And if grace is God offering us of His kindness, which as seen in Christ has absolutely no limit, where are we to assume any limitation to our sharing of what He keeps giving?

For the Word describes us as jars of clay, and to the best of my knowledge, every such vessel has an overall limit to how much it can hold of whatever with which it’s filled. And if we’ve been filled with the grace of God, and yet He continues to offer it, as we talked about yesterday in what is a grace in place of grace already given, what then are we to do with the excess?

Except to look at the world around us and realize through our newly opened eyes the many places and people who need what we know.

And yet what do we know? For if it’s indeed grace, shouldn’t it show? Is grace able to be concealed? Can grace be congealed? Are such things as mercy and honor and forgiveness and freedom of such normalcy here that nobody could tell the ones who are set free from the many more who live as if they’re not but slaves to the every afterthought as won beyond every choice which turns out only a mistake?

Or does not grace demand we confess mistakes in order to help us understand the gravity of grace itself?

Can we understand the kind of kindness given us in Jesus if we don’t at first agree that we need Him? And if we can agree that we need Him, can’t we imagine that everyone else might too? And if we can agree that all of us in fact do, so much so that He knew this too and chose in that to come and do all we needed Him to, can’t we then wrap our minds around how we’re supposed to share all He’s given and continues to give?

Would we not at some point stop receiving grace if it were just a matter meant for us?

God’s not wasteful. He doesn’t do what’s unnecessary. Why would He? No, rather He does everything in perfection. And yet, still here we sit with grace upon grace. What then of the extra?

It’s not without purpose or point. For again, that’s not how God works. He has a reason for everything He does and thus it’s all done in accord with His will for all of mankind. So we have grace to give for a reason. It’s to give it. In whatever form or fashion we can. It’s to extend it to whomever whenever we can. It’s to overcome evil with good, to shine such a light of hope into this darkened and darkening world that someone somewhere might see somehow some hint of what they too know they need.

It’s all about God meeting our every need whilst also using us to be His hands and feet erupting into a family of believers who all live in such a selfless surrender that Christ doth indeed become the Head as none of us fall then behind as we’ve all, in Him, more than plenty of hope and peace and purpose to share.

To share. To serve. To sacrifice knowing that we can because we can’t. And I know that sounds strange, something of a self-contradicting. But we can step forward in grace willing to sacrifice what we know we’ve been given knowing that we cannot lose what He keeps giving. We will not run out of grace, of kindness, of mercy, of compassion. We cannot run out of them for God is all of them. And He is limitless, and thus so too are all the characteristics and attributes that make Him who He is.

We cannot run out of God, and thus, as we’re still here in a world that needs to know who He is so that they too can welcome the risk of trusting in Him, you and I are but reflections of grace as we are only what He gives us to be.

And so, no matter the form or fashion, let us be evidence of who He is by being in this hateful world, kindness; to a broken people, hope; to a fragile heart, certainty; to a weakened resolve, discipline; to a lack of courage, zeal; and to a fallen world; the faith that knows that such as what we are is not what we’ve to stay forever.

No, He gives us all we need to be something more than we’ve been. And so let us then go into all the world and tell the rest who He is by giving them all that He’s given us.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold