Grace of God and Me - Comments (7)

Category: Applied,Articles
Author: John Malone
Date: 12th March, 2004 @ 10:08:22 PM

I have lost three close friends. One died in a plane crash. The others were both: exactly my age; intelligent (even brilliant), physicians (one an FP, one a neurosurgeon); and, interested in the Bible.

One of these friends said to me, not long before he died, something very concise and insightful. “Grace,” he said, “is what you need. Everything else is what you deserve.”

Of all the conversations I had with my friend, on subjects ranging from nuclear medicine to emerging technologies, these are words that have stuck with me beyond his life.

The Demise of Grace.

Grace is a concept and piece of reality rapidly being lost in our society. The truth that our Creator is a beneficent and caring Father is being overrun by man-made fantasies and fabricated religious systems focusing on effort, achievement, and results rather than revealed truth and help from God.

Men, women, and children are not being told to rely on our Heavenly Father for “what we need,” but to fear various circumstances, and to rely on human wisdom and labor for their provision.

So, it is a pleasant thought to know that my friend, in the face of death, was wise enough to look to God to help him in his time of need, despite having a top-notch medical education.

I suppose grace found its demise in our minds sometime near the late sixties and early seventies. It was then that eastern mysticism swept through our country with its alien and hostile notions of karma and cosmic justice.

All of a sudden, the present and future was in our hands, and we could make of it what we desired. Even the past came into the hands of revisionist historians who applied techniques of fiction to make history “interesting.”

As a youth, I had been taught that grace was a “somewhat” that somehow flowed like water into my soul. Whereas I could conceive of such a “stuff”, I had no personal knowledge of a gracious God who is Father.

Learning About Need.

Later in my life – when I was about 24 – I did understand what need was. I needed to make a living, I needed to be forgiven, I needed to be directed and advised morally and spiritually. In short, I needed to be saved from what I deserved because I finally understood what sin I had done in my life, and that I could not keep from doing more.

In the early seventies, as a left-leaning political activist and theoretical Marxist, I saw the civil rights and free speech movement turn into the present women’s and homosexual movements. Unable to reconcile those twists with reason, and unable conscientiously to countenance the attendant neo-Nazi culture, I retreated from politics.

Further, while socializing with faculty at the university, I witnessed firsthand the consummate failure by modern intellectuals with aspects of life such as marriage and child-raising.

I was a young fellow who, for the first time, came face-to-face with the consequences of my own behavior. I needed help, plain and simple, and the sources of help toward which I was pointed seemed to need more than I did.

But I thank God to this day that when I needed help, I found the grace of God instead of the rehabilitation plans of men. I found it by exploring the Bible, and discovering it’s accuracy, beginning with curiosity about prophecy of things to come, and adding a basic understanding of God’s plan of salvation.

What I Have Discovered.

Now I have been a Christian for 30 years: virtually all of my adult life. I have made certain important discoveries during that time I would like to tell you.

First, I have discovered that need is the common and frequent state of all of us. We need people, resources, wisdom, and knowledge. In fact, just as they taught me in college economics, need is basic to the human marketplace.

Second, I have discovered that there are many schemes of man in the world which, while appealing to needs of men and women, are designed to create dependence, not liberty.

Third, I have found that only God is good enough, loving enough, and free enough to meet the needs of all. And He is reliable, therefore securely trusted.

How God’s Grace Came to Me.

Many people who have become Christians have dramatic stories of their conversions, with many visible changes attending. This was not so in my case, as the Word of God came to me, and met with my understanding, and as I believed the truth about the historical death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, I found a transformation in my thinking, and an increasing conviction of the “wrongness” of my previous course, and the “rightness” of the course I was taking.

In short, the grace of God came to me the only way it comes to anyone: by faith in God’s Word.

As I have studied the Scriptures, I now realize that what happened to me – and what happens also to others who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ – is that they find in the Word of God the truth concerning the person and work of Jesus Christ. How that He is the Son of God – God Almighty come in the flesh – and that He was given by His Father to suffer and die in my place, taking to Himself the penalty due me for my own sins.

Deal of A Lifetime.

If you and I were to conduct a business transaction, you get what you pay for, and we supply what was agreed.

In God’s economy, you get what Jesus Christ paid for – eternal life. It’s a much better deal.

Why not take it?

7 Comments » Leave a comment