How We Love MattersSample

Grace.

We all love to receive it. Giving it, on the other hand, can be harder to do.

Why?

Because to give grace often requires us to deny ourselves. Maybe to even deny ourselves something that may be rightfully ours. To give grace may mean we have to deny our right to defend ourselves, avenge ourselves, or even protect ourselves. To give grace is to give someone something they have not earned and may not deserve, oftentimes at the expense of yourself.

And this is why we struggle with it. Because we are so accustomed to living life the complete opposite way: guarding what’s ours and looking out for our own. Yet God calls us to live differently. Why? Because of the grace we have received.

We, as God’s children, have been given a grace that we did not deserve and never could have earned. Yet we have been given it anyway at His expense. And so, God says our rightful response to this gift of grace is not to hoard it, but to join Him in giving it.

This is what we see happening in Matthew 18:21-35. The steward just received an overwhelming amount of grace and instead of giving it, he then turned around and withheld it.

So, what happened?

Did he forget about the grace he had just received? No, I'm sure he remembered the grace. He just ignored the responsibility that comes with it. And so often we all do the same thing. We live in the grace we have received as if it was meant to stay in us and not flow through us.

Friends, we were never created to be only recipients of God’s grace, but to be conduits of it. We were created to be a reflection of who God is and how He loves. But to do this requires that we be less protective and more reflective. We must spend less time protecting our rights to be angry, unforgiving and unloving and spend more time reflecting on how God could have been those things toward us yet chose not to be.

To be a conduit of grace is to choose to live life giving what we have been given, even when a person doesn't deserve it. This grace can only be given when you are finally convinced that you didn't deserve grace either.

Are you living in the double grace (vertical and horizontal) or are you only experiencing the one grace?

How We Love Matters. For His glory, amen.

We hope this plan encouraged and challenged you. Learn more about How We Love Matters by Albert Tate here.