First of all, let me just state again for the 1.000th time how much I love grace in all its forms. I love the fact that faith is what saved me, not my own works. But that leaves me with some questions:

1) Why are we so quick to default to rules instead of grace for living out our faith? It seems we’re a lot better at looking at a biblical text and coming up with all sorts of applications and practical steps than seeing what that passage reveals about the heart of God, especially toward His people.

2) Why is it that I in particular am really good when it comes to receiving and sometimes even expecting grace from others, but not nearly as good at extending grace to others? I judge others by their actions, while at the same time expecting them to judge me for my good intentions.

3) Why aren’t we putting down our picket signs and boycott plans and forming more confession booths. Not the kind where people confess to us, but where we confess to others how we have failed as believers to show them what Christ is really all about. Oh yeah, and Read Blue Like Jazz to find out more about confession booths.

4) Why are so many of us so quick to condemn sins we don’t struggle with, such as homosexuality or addictions, while minimizing the our own sins of pride and gluttony and lust? Why are we so quick to be like that Pharisee that thanked God that he wasn’t like all the sinners around him? Why aren’t we more like the tax collector who truly saw his own desparate need for grace and took the blame instead?

5) Where is the love that we are called to show each other? Not just a once a week kind of love, but an everyday, burden-sharing, transparent, completely honest love that seeks the best of the beloved, no matter what the cost. The kind of love that will draw people in droves to seek what we have in Christ.

If I am honest, I have to look in the mirror to find the problem with the Church. I am way too judgmental and condemning and quick to blame or cast doubt, slow to show grace and mercy. Each one of us could stand to look in the mirror for the culprit of what’s wrong with America. Not those liberals out there, but this hypocrite right here.

If I am true to the gospel, I see that that’s not who I am. That’s the sin in me, but not me. I am who God has declared me to be. So are you. We are already blameless. Already justified. Already righteous. Already victorious. All we have to do is claim these things and live in them. To so be enraptured by Christ’s love and let it envelop us until it shines through every pore and transforms us into the likeness of the One who loves us so much.

If I want grace, if I need it, then I should want it just as badly for my fellow believers. If I am forgiven for so much, then I should strive to aks God to put forgiveness in my heart for those who wronged me far less than I ever wronged my Jesus. Help me to want those things, Jesus.

Amen and amen.