Grace Hangs Around

Don’t waste time dillydallying around with theological precision, humming another song, or endless religious activity!

The only thing Jesus insists on is coming straight to him.

What does it look like to come boldly before the throne of grace? I, for sure, don’t have it all figured out but what I have learned in my 40 years in the Church is that Jesus has a strong distaste for religious pretense. The flowery rhetoric, church clothes, and petty bashfulness doesn’t pull the wool over his eyes. He resists our desire to pretend to be better than we really are. He sees the skeletons in the closet, all the wrong turns we’ve made, and still issues the call to “come to him.” When we posture ourselves as either too good or too bad for his grace, we reveal that we’ve lost touch with who we really are and we don’t know Who we’re dealing with. The lamb of God did not and does not flinch.

If you’re going to come to Jesus, then you’ve got to be willing to bring your whole self.

Coming to Jesus is as hard as telling the whole truth about the worst thing you’ve ever done. Coming to Jesus is as difficult as admitting to someone else that what was done to you actually happened. Coming to Jesus requires the fearless resolve of a five year old to get out of the bed and shut the closet door on the monster that lurks in the dark between the hangers. Coming to Jesus is serious business because your soul is no laughing matter.

To come boldly before the throne of grace takes real faith, real courage, and real vulnerability. More than that, it takes resolve to cling to what Scripture says about how God feels about you and all that he’s done to make things right between you and Him. Once you’re there, in the Presence, he will not give you a job assignment, a lecture about how screwed up you are, or a snake. The prophet Isaiah says that the smoldering wick that is your life, he will not snuff out. The bruised reed that is your heart, he will not break. Jesus, He will give your soul the rest it has needed all along. If Good Friday teaches us anything; its this – grace hangs around.

Amen.