Good to Grace ~ Why Grace?

Greetings Dear Reader,

A friend posed a question that is clearly part of what must be explored to address our journey properly.  In approaching grace, one must understand why grace is necessary.  It begins with my introductory quote, “‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fear relieved.”

My friend asked this: “What part does fear play in this journey? Grace teaches us fear, and also liberates us from fear if we let it in. So maybe some of the good works that are set as ‘reserves to ensure redemption’ are born of fear that pre-dates acceptance of grace…whether tempting faith or testing faith.”

If you read me regularly, you know that I believe that fear is the seed of all that we do that is selfish, unloving, and wrong.  I will not take a deep dive into that here.  I will say that when I am honest about my motivations when I am selfish, I can trace it to fear of not having, not being safe, or not being loved. 

All of our fears stem from our inner understanding that we are not as we should be in relation to the Father.  We can never be what we are designed to be on our own.  We will not create that utopian world that we so richly desire.  Our lives are filled with fear because we strive to be good when we are not in harmony with the One who personifies goodness.  At the very essence of our need for grace is the honest fear that we cannot reach the goodness of the Father on our own.

We cannot merit the goodness of God any more than an ant can achieve the sentience of a human.  My friend is correct that we carry some fear that we need to merit the Father’s favor into the time after we have accepted grace.  When I do this, it is because I have lost my understanding of the vast unplumbable depths of grace.  It is grace that teaches me my need for the Father’s love. 

That grace is what draws me into the place where I can even see my need for redemption.  Then it shows me that I cannot merit redemption on my own.  Out of the love the Father shows us our need to fear not embracing his grace.  This first move is the prime act of grace.  It is love allowing fear so that we can be freed from that fear by grace.

Then once we accept redemption by grace, we still feel that lingering need to merit what we have been given.  For me, it is like someone giving me a very thoughtful Christmas gift. I know that I do not deserve it and I feel self-conscious about someone loving me so much.  Instead of pure gratitude, I indulge my fear that I am not good enough.  The essence is that this is not how grace works.  It is by grace through faith that we are relieved from that fear.  Any good we do after that is a response to grace and not a maintenance of grace. 

We live out grace, Dear Reader, by loving others and the Father.  The grace from the Father that enables to love is what can cast out the residual fear that we need to maintain our redeemed status.  It is the love that we accept and give that generates our understanding and application of grace.  As my friend suggests, it is the employment of our faith that grace is sufficient that mitigates our fear.  Love is employed from the Father by his giving us grace and he in turn asks us to use love to extend grace to others.  It is all to evidence our transformation and not to merit or maintain it.  It is the ongoing gift we receive from the Father.  It is fear, un-arrested by grace that causes us not to love as we should. 

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn
Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a homeowner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”
(͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Every human story is part of the great story that leads to the Father getting everything back to Good.

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In giving good over to grace, we must allow grace to dissolve any residual fear that we need to merit favor.