Life Transformed

Dear Family

I am so grateful each week for the wonderful interaction we have together as a family. We are so blessed to love each other as we do. I am so thankful to each of you for being so great at everything you do. This week’s message is about the  grace Christ offers us.  His gift of the Atonement fulfills the law of justice and allows us to access God’s mercy.  What an incredible blessing!  I know that Christ died for you.  If you were the only person on this Earth, Christ would still have completed the Atonement in order to offer you forgiveness.  You are a child of God.  I love you and I pray for you.

I Love you all so much!

DaD

LIFE TRANSFORMED

All Christ’s gifts of life—life after death, life after sin, and life amid trials—are given deeper meaning in His promise of life “more abundantly” (John 10:10). Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ we can be resurrected, forgiven, and consoled, but we can also be transformed.

I once met a Chinese woman who, along with her husband and son, had immigrated to Melbourne, Australia. They had sold all they had in China and were living very humbly in their new home. They struggled to learn English and to find new friends. Also they had begun to show interest in Christianity. When I met this strong and intelligent young mother, I was impressed. Through a translator, I asked her why she was willing to sacrifice so much. Without a pause, she answered, “Because I want to give my son the opportunity for a better life.” I couldn’t help but imagine that Christ’s answer to the same question would be similar: “I sacrificed because I want to give you the opportunity for a better life.”

We cannot resurrect ourselves. We cannot wipe away our own sins and skepticism. We cannot reach into our own broken hearts and heal them. All these are gifts of grace. We cannot transform ourselves. Christ’s grace—His divine help, His enabling power—is absolutely necessary. Those who say “I can do it myself” have not yet learned how truly powerless they are. Those who say “God helps those who help themselves” have yet to learn that God helps us to help ourselves. Those who only “say grace” at the dinner table have yet to learn that grace is not something we offer God; it is something we receive from Him. Those who feel they have fallen from grace have yet to learn that grace is actually what catches them and lifts them up.

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I once received the following email from a friend named Jon: “As a young man I had a very difficult time coming to terms with my inevitable and continual state of imperfection, regardless of my good intentions and no matter how hard I worked at doing everything I was asked to do and being everything I was expected to be. . . . I often felt completely inadequate and insufficient.”

People would tell Jon, “Just try your hardest. Do your best, and then let God do all the rest.” It is a clever little rhyme, but for someone with Jon’s perfectionist tendencies, even trying his hardest and doing his best seemed like overwhelming expectations. His email continued:

“Such well-intentioned advice was almost crippling to me. I knew I could always try just a little harder and do a little more. I felt that Christ’s suffering and grace, even the companionship of the Holy Spirit, could only apply to me after I first rid myself of all ungodliness.”

We can find ourselves feeling like Jon—unworthy of God’s help—because we all fail in one way or another to meet His standards. We are weak and sinful, and we waver in our commitments. As we see how far we have to go, we feel like giving up. Thankfully, when we see only responsibilities, grace allows us to also see possibilities. Perhaps we have wrongly seen grace as the light at the end of the tunnel instead of the light that can surround us now and move us through the tunnel. Mike McKinley explained, “You will never be righteous enough to please God. But thankfully, Christ’s perfect righteousness becomes ours when we come to him in faith” (Am I Really a Christian? 27).

We receive God’s gift of grace by turning to Him in faith. We may doubt our own abilities, but we can’t doubt His. It is through His grace that we can repent of our wrongdoings and strive to keep His commandments. Christ said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). It is through His grace that we recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives and are able to endure to the end. John Piper has written, “[We] are being changed, even if slowly, from one degree of humility and love to the next” (Finally Alive, 21). Similarly, Mike McKinley asked, “How can we know who the real believers are? How can we distinguish them from those with superficial professions of faith? Real believers endure until the end. Their attachment to Christ perseveres and never goes away” (Am I Really a Christian? 79).

How do we maintain faith, repent, and keep commandments, recognize the Spirit, and endure—especially in a world where many who label themselves as Christians have given up trying? The power comes from Christ Himself. We do not act in an effort to be worthy of grace. We act because we are enabled by grace. The same Christ who gives commands to obey is also the One who empowers us to obey. “Just as believers’ salvation is not their own doing, neither is their perseverance. The amazing grace which saves wretches is the same amazing grace that brings them home” (Mike McKinley, Am I Really a Christian? 87).

Choosing to live as a daily disciple—a 7-day Christian—leads to significant personal development as we experience the Savior’s transforming power. The grace that saves us is also the grace that changes us.

My daughter Whitney once pointed out to me that the parable of the talents—which I had always thought of as applying only to abilities or money—may also apply to the gift of Christ’s grace.

“For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one” (Matthew 25:14–15).

The servants who received five and two used the gifts they were given and showed growth. The servant who received one was afraid and didn’t use the gift. When the Lord returned, he was pleased with the first two servants for expanding or enhancing what they had been given. He was not too concerned about how much their talents had grown or whose had grown the most, only that what he had given had been utilized (see vv. 16–23). When the servant who received one talent reported that his talent remained unchanged, the Lord called him “wicked and slothful” (v. 26). The servant had been given a gift but had neglected it (see 1 Timothy 4:14).

Now let us consider that perhaps the Lord was more concerned with improving servants than with multiplying talents. Let’s say the talents represent the Lord’s gift of grace. From this view, maybe wicked and slothful were not harsh words spoken in anger but realistic descriptions of attributes the third servant should have and could have changed. He had been given all he needed, but he had done nothing with it. Had he depended on God’s grace, surely he could have become “good and faithful” like the others (v. 23).

In the parable, the Lord told the first two servants, “I will make thee ruler[s] over many things” (vv. 21, 23). Because the words were spoken after the reckoning, we assume their crowning as rulers happened after the servants had entered into the joy of their Lord. However, looking at it another way, perhaps the Lord had been making the faithful servants rulers all along. Maybe the reason the slothful servant was not allowed to enter was not because he was being punished but because he was unprepared. The term ruler may not have been a prize or title the servants were given as much as a description of who, through God’s grace, they had become.

In the parable we read, “For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance” (v. 29). As the Lord said on a different occasion, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

The 7 day Christian by Brad Wilcox