Mercy or Grace

Matthew 5:48, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

1 Peter 1:15-16, "But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: 'Be holy, because I am holy.'" 

I quit. This "being" is just too hard. Of course it feels this way because trying to be like God will only happen if God enables one to do it and if one has the desire to receive it. 

I had a good friend named Kenny who came from a difficult home life; one that even the darkest imagination could not conceive. He quickly became involved in criminal activity and hung out with some very unsavory people.

Kenny is one of those stories that I draw strength from because somehow God drew him to himself. Kenny received Jesus as his Savior. The problem was that Kenny had no compass on how to live "saved." In his own strength he poured himself into being perfect and holy. The outcome was predictable.

One day I get a phone call. "Pastor Danny, I quit. I can't do this. It's too hard. I don't know how to live in this world without going back to the old ways of doing things." 

I wish I could say that statement was for the Kenny's of the world. You know...for other people. But if I were honest with myself I think God has recorded for the one thousandth time my, "I quit," or to my shame, not said it, but lived it. 

I have lived most of my life thinking that I am always in the category of "mercy" with God; that some how I must earn his favor. Every good thing in my life was clearly received because of God's goodness to me, not because of me, a sinner, condemned, unclean. This may be an accurate view of my heart but I think it cuts away at the heart of God. 

Today I want to see the good things in my life as gifts from the Father of Lights who dwells in inapproachable light and yet loves me, cares for me, and simply loves to surprise me with his grace.

He's not tabulating my failures, my lack of faith, my stubborn heart, my worldly thinking, or any other sinful issue that is already in his omniscient awareness. He just loves me and wants to demonstrate that in tangible ways.  

Following Jesus is difficult at times. But perhaps a balance of mercy  and grace will help us have hope and provoke us to look more at the heart of God than dwell upon our own. Perhaps dwelling on the heart of God will actually change our own.