Undeserved favour

This post is for those who were both looking forward to reading what I have to say and those who were surprised that I didn't blog about this topic sooner. (You know who you are.....)

So the series continues...This week it was The Devoted Life: They devoted themselves to GRACE. Brett delivered an awesome message so much so that it hit a bit too close to home. But that was a good thing.

There are many ways of describing grace. The rather popular one is God's Riches At Christ's Expense but one that I much prefer is grace described as undeserved favour. I just think that it sums up the whole idea of grace quite well.

Brett narrowed down the different types of people and put us into 3 groups: the sensualists, the perfectionists/control freak & idealists. And he then went on to expand on how each group falls into the trap of mis-using grace.

Sensualists have this concept of grace being for them and them alone. And the existence of grace is for their pleasure and it's something that they feel. So these people tend to fall into the trap of intepreting everything they feel grace even if it isn't. I don't really connect with this concept of mis-using grace coz that's just me. But the group I fall into, which wouldn't surprise those who know me one bit, would be the perfectionist/control freak.

For me, I guess it is partly personality and partly cultural. Coming from a culture that is traditionally poor and having had to work for everything they wanted, it's been drummed into me that I shouldn't expect to get everything I want just coz I wanted it. I have to work for it, earn it. And being a perfectionist, it's the same. I earn what I want, I work for what I want. You don't receive anything just coz you think you deserve it. And put perfectionism and culture together into me, it's a double dose of madness.

With God's grace being something that is not earn, it's a tricky concept for me to grasp. Grace is something that we don't deserve yet we have been given it because He loves us enough. When things are fine and dandy, I find it hard to accept grace but it's even harder when things aren't going so well. But how grace works is a complicated matter. To receive grace you have to show grace but to show grace you have to receive grace.

Crazy, I know! So how do you go about this crazy-ness? Well, it's a constantly learning curve for me. I'm part of various relationships with various people and in these relationships it's where I have been given guidance to learn to accept grace for what it is and also to give it.

As for how idealist mis-use grace, check out Rhett's blog. He posted a really good post on this.