Scripture: Galatians 1:3
Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Thought for the Day: Brennan Manning is a priest and author, and everything I’ve ready of Brennan Manning has been a delight to my spirit. Recently, I came across the following words that both delighted and prodded by spirit:
Put bluntly, the American (Christian) church today accepts grace in theory but denies it in practice. We say we believe that the fundamental structure of reality is grace, not works … but our lives refute our faith. By and large, the gospel of grace is neither proclaimed, understood, nor lived. Too many … are living in the house of fear and not in the house of love.
The Apostle Paul centered everything he came to know on the single idea of grace. In Galatians, he continued to point to God’s grace as the reason for why he did what he did. Grace – God’s self-giving love displayed in Jesus – goes against so much of what our culture honors and worships. In the church, we are too easily sucked into the culture’s way of living, and so as Brennan Manning suggests, we may claim a basic belief in grace, but our lives appear to challenge that which we say we believe. What does the grace revealed in Jesus look like, and what might it look like in your life?
Prayer: Where your grace lives, O Lord, lives are changed. May it live within me and may it be shared through me. Amen.
Let’s Get Together Tomorrow
For Worship and Fellowship
…and then get signed-up for
VBS
