3 min. read
Grace radiates from the center of God. If we are being made in the image of this God, and if we are followers of Jesus the Christ, grace should be lived out in our lives in 5 clear ways.
Paul’s letters to the Corinthians (the body of believers at Corinth) give insight to these 5 ways of living grace.
1. Divine Love
The divine love that God shows to the undeserving is the greatest gift of all. This character of divine love cannot be possessed. It must be granted.
Paul’s greatest desire for the Corinthians is that they would be willing recipients of this grace.
The root of the problems in the Corinthian church is that they have accepted God’s grace as forgiveness, but they have not accepted the possibilities beyond forgiveness. They are forgiven, but now they have abandoned grace. They have abandoned the process.
Its very design beckons to be drawn on more than once. The desired state of grace is not static, but dynamic.
2. Service
Service results from a grace continually accepted and applied. Grace becomes active through us. Grace does not comfort in the face of failure to please, but stimulates and executes acts of service through the people of God to the glory of God.
Throughout chapter 8 of 2 Corinthians, the NRSV translates charis variously as ‘privilege’ (v. 4), ‘generous undertaking’ (vs. 6, 7, 19), and ‘generous act’ (v. 9). To be of service to God’s creation happens only by God’s own generous act. The Christian community in turn channels grace in generous service stemming from the divine nature lived out through us.
3. Thanksgiving
When we submit ourselves in service, a spirit of thanksgiving becomes obvious.
Paul writes of such thanksgiving in terms of grace. Regularly translated as ‘thanks’ as in “thanks be to God” (2 Cor. 8.16), the actual Greek is, once again, charis (1 Cor. 15.57; 2 Cor. 1.11; 2.14; 8.16, 9.15).
Grace naturally flows from a spirit of thanksgiving. When we give ourselves to God, the resulting tangible acts of service form a nurturing atmosphere of grace.
4. Sustaining Strength
Grace is the power of God clearly seen in our weakness (1 Cor. 1.4; 3.10; 15.57; 2 Cor. 2.14; 9.15; 6.1; 12.9-10). Paul even appears to be thankful for the grace to suffer. When viewed in the light of the cross, human hardships become an occasion for Christ’s strength to show itself.
The paradoxical quality of perfect power in weakness makes a passage such as 2 Corinthians 4.8-10 a premiere example of the potential power of grace. If afflicted, why not crushed? If perplexed, why not driven to despair? If persecuted, why not forsaken? If struck down, why not destroyed?
The answer is the power of God known as grace.
The death of Christ is carried in us, utilizing the our weakness to display God’s power to the glory of God. The resurrection life is lived through the church, not because of our worthiness and strength, but because of our weakness submitted to Christ.
5. Discipline
Finally, grace forms and grows us by discipline. And I know discipline is not feel good word.
The Corinthians are a people entrusted with a seeming surplus of grace gifts. It could be argued that the Corinthian church is graced with the same quality and quantity of grace that God desires for all his people. That they do not readily and obediently accept the grace gifts in a manner pleasing to God is the sin of the sanctified sinners in Corinth.
They are attempting to remain in a state of initial forgiving grace without allowing the life of Christ to be lived out through them. They are not using grace to extend God’s divine love, to serve each other and the world, to experience thanksgiving, nor to allow the display of God’s power.
In short, they are not allowing grace to discipline their lives and transform them into the image of Christ. Were they actively experiencing and practicing the qualities and activities of grace, they would not fail to grow in grace.
So Tell Me Something
How do you see grace resulting being lived out in your life and the life of your faith community?