Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Destructive Grace

Grace is so very destructive. It’s dangerous. It’s beautiful. It heals and it tears down.

Certainly there have been days, perhaps years, when I didn’t welcome grace. I didn’t want the Holy Spirit to come and tear apart my carefully constructed idols… idols I had put together over the years as substitutes for dependence on God.  Thankfully, God is a jealous God and will not long share space in our soul with our idols. Our idols allow us to con ourselves into self-righteousness because when our idols work for us we imagine, perhaps sub-consciously, that we really don’t need God, that we can be righteous all be our self.
Ambushed by grace, our self-righteousness is slowly but surely assaulted by the Holy Spirit until it crumbles under the weight of God’s love. First we fight it. We don’t want that grace. It tears apart all of our defenses. It destroys all of our god-substitutes.  Then either our heart grows harder or we begin to welcome the destructive power of grace. The Holy Spirit clears out our idols.  And as painful as that may be, it’s the best thing that can happen to us! When that grace fueled, love lavished destruction of our idols happens, then and only then do we begin to experience the unfathomable depths of the joy God has in store for his sons and daughters.

I fought him too long! I might fight him again tomorrow but if I do, I welcome his beautiful destructive grace! Quit fighting the Holy Spirit and his grace! Give in and experience his boundless joy.   
 
Anchored in Grace,
Harrison

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