Grace-filled Life

The last couple of weeks in church, we've been discussing grace, which is just awesome with me.  I love the topic of grace, and though we often pay lip-service to it, I feel like it's something Christians don't necessarily discuss in-depth a lot.  Which is a shame, because some of the New Testament writings on grace make for some of the most fascinating apologetics in the New Testament.  This really appeals to me because, while emotion is all fine and good, I really love me some logic in my religion.

Grace is one of my favorite topics to really study and get deep into because of my tortured history with its opposite, legalism.  The churches I grew up in were incredibly hypocritical and legalistic, teaching that the smallest infractions (i.e. "listening to secular music") could cause you to "backslide" and lose your salvation.  "Grace" was mentioned once or twice, but the emphasis was really on keeping your salvation through works and following an endless series of rules.  (Ironically, whenever the leaders were caught in really big sins, the blame was almost always placed on the Devil.)

When I left and rejected the teachings of the Pentecostal Holiness church, I found myself untethered, and drifting.  Because I had been under the weight of "the law" for so long, and all of the guilt and shame I had felt had come from outside influences, I had little in the way of a moral compass of my own.  This resulted in me making lots and lots of mistakes.  I finally realized that what I had been taught my whole life was bunk, but instead of keeping the good and throwing out the bad, I just tossed all of it.  I began sinning, kidding myself that, as long as I was the only person I was hurting through my actions, I was still being a "good" person.

Of course, when you self-destruct, it's never just you who you hurt.  You take out everyone who cares about you in a supernova of selfishness.

Fortunately, I got sick of living for myself pretty quickly.  I didn't want to be a screw-up.  I wanted to be a good person.  But I was still afraid of "organized religion", and all its (to me) inherent hypocrisies.

Getting back into the Bible has helped.  I always loved studying the Bible, even as a child, and re-reading it as an adult has helped me get closer to God.  Getting closer to God has helped me develop something I desperately needed:  a sense of conviction.  Not "guilt" from cultural and societal pressures, but an honest sense of what I feel God (through the Holy Spirit and the Bible) is telling me is right and wrong.

To give you an idea, here are some of the things about which I feel convicted, and some of the things I have never felt that God was condemning me for.

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Bucket List ~ Director's Cut

If you haven't checked it out, click the pic to watch the "official" Glee flash mob.  (It's worth it just for the two cute little kids breakdancing at the beginning.)

I saw this linked last night, and I just love it.  I'm a huge Gleek, and I think flash mobs are the greatest social construct of the 21st century.  I dream of one day being in a flash mob, or even better yet, organizing one.

How brave do you have to be to be the first person to jump out there and start dancing?  You have no guarantee that all the people who are supposed to join you are going to follow through, and you run the risk of greatly embarrassing yourself.  I can only imagine how thrilling that moment is, when you commit to such an insane, impromptu public performance.

So, I decided that leading a flash mob is at the top of my bucket list.  And that got me thinking about other things I would really like to do, and some of the cool things I've done.

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What does a Christian look like?

The other day on my way to work, I had to stop at the gas station by my house to fill my car up.  (Off-topic, but $40 to fill up the 12-gallon tank of a sub-compact?  Really?)

Now, this gas station is at a strange juxtaposition of subdivision, bus stop, Mexican grocery mart, and downtown.  You get a very broad range of customers patronizing the gas station and attached convenience store.

I normally stop there early in the morning, and I like watching the different types of people that mill around there.  There's a homeless guy who rides a bike around my neighborhood, and he often stops there to pick up a Fuze brand sports drink that he carries around in a basket on the front of his bicycle.

Early in the morning, the delivery guys are normally there, too, dropping off the shipments of soft drinks and beers.  Construction workers and contractors gas up their big, heavy-duty pickups and grab some of the cheap kwik-e-mart coffee.  I see other office workers, women pumping gas in high heels and pant suits.

This morning, there was a big American sedan at the pump next to me.  It was full of older ladies, dressed like they were on their way to a fancy Easter service (fabulous hats with silk flowers and all).  I wondered if maybe they were going to a convention, since it was 7:00 am on a weekday morning.

I set the nozzle to automatic fill, and sat back down in my car to start on my day's Bible reading.  (I like to do my reading before work in the morning.)  A few moments later, I heard a tap on my window.

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