Archives: June 2010

'Grace & Character'

By Liza Hoeksma

Two months back we celebrated Easter which is a time when we remember again how Jesus gave everything for us. We say things like, “He paid the price.” “He took the punishment that we deserved.” “He did what we couldn’t do and made us right with God.”

So we’re sorted right? Yes! This is God’s grace that through Jesus we are good with God. End of story? Well, not quite. In one sense, the minute we accept what Jesus did for us and turn to him ‘it is finished’. In another sense, it has only just begun. As soon as we welcome Jesus in, something happens to our hearts – the start of a huge transformation.

Have a read of these verses:

Whenever… they turn to face God…. they suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiselled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We're free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.
2 Corinthians 3v16-18 (The Message)

Paul sums up what is going on: knowing Jesus brings us face to face with God and we realise he’s not a piece of stone, interested only in us fulfilling the letter of the law. Instead he’s a living God who brings us into freedom and reflects his glory in us. When we meet with him we can’t help but change.

Some of the transformation seems to happen almost instantly. We may find parts of the pain and worry we were carrying have gone; sometimes the things that once made us angry no longer bother us or often we stop wanting to do the things we used to do because we realise they were bad for us.

But of course we don’t get an entire heart transplant in an instant. Old habits die hard and we can find some things harder to break. One thing many of us can struggle with is trying to earn God’s love and that’s certainly something that I keep coming back to. I know that God loves me unconditionally. I know that it doesn’t matter what I do or don’t do, he’ll always love me.

And yet sometimes I still slip into thinking that his love has something to do with my actions. If I don’t read my Bible for a few days guilt creeps in. When I’ve messed up again I find it hard to face God, knowing I’ve let him down.