Refreshed and renewed--and thinking about many things

"God is consistently overgenerous with His grace."

~ Brennan Manning, author/speaker

That's just a glimpse of where I was this past weekend--Glen Eyrie, a retreat center near my home.

My husband and I gave ourselves an early anniversary gift of a retreat featuring Brennan Manning, who spoke on grace. Hhhhmm. Wonder why the topic intrigued me? Michael Card led worship. And worship we did. I'm listening to his music as I type this post.

I took scads of notes--many of which are seeds for future installments of The Accidental Pharisee blog. So stay tuned.

The quote that I led off with was one of the first I scribbled down: God is consistently overgenerous with His grace.

Now, if I was in my true Pharisee-mindset--accidental or otherwise--I'd hear that and say, "Oh, really? Says who? Show me in the Word where it says God is overgenerous with His grace." We Accidental Pharisees, we're a prove-it-to-me bunch.

Well, I can!

Ephesians 1:8 says that God lavishes His grace on us. Lavishes. That sounds amazingly generous to me.

And you know what happens when you get all Pharisee-like and focus on the Law, on all the dos an don'ts? The Law squelches grace. It diminishes what God lavishes on us.

Thinking Out Loud Here: It's good for an Accidental Pharisee to get away from it all and come face to face with God. It's good to hang around with people who live in grace. It's good to immerse myself in a counter-culture--and to realize it's what I truly want.

Masks

“When the mask of self-righteousness has been torn from us and we stand stripped of all our accustomed defenses, we are candidates for God's generous grace.” -Erwin W. Lutzer (1941- )

I have never thought of self-righteousness as a mask--something I hide behind. Something that covers the real me.

But let me work with this thought for a minute because I think Lutzer has something here.

Self-righteousness--all those things I do to make myself look good. Imagine all those actions like a mask I pull across my face.

"Look at me," I say. "I look pretty good."

Sure, I may not say it out loud, but it's what I'm thinking.

But what people are really seeing is a mask. A false front.

What's that old '50s song that went, "Yes, I'm the great pretender ... "

It's only when the mask comes off that I can truly begin to receive God's grace.

Grace has been there--available to me--all along. But I've been content with the mask of my own self-righteousness. I'm thinking I look pretty good. But God sees behind my mask. And He loves me anyway. And He offers me grace. And more grace.

And He tells me it's okay to take the mask off.

It's unneccessary.

It's not the real me.

Just Thinking Out Loud: We Accidental Pharisees almost treat our relationship with God like a masquerade ball--masks required. God says No Masks Allowed. Are we brave enough to let His grace replace our masks or self-righteousness?

Hanging Out With Pharisees

FreeFoto.com

" ... He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God ... "

Micah 6:8

I spent some time this weekend researching some buddies of mine--the Pharisees.

You probably know a few of them too, you just don't realize it.

If we're going to be talking about grace, we're going to run into the Pharisees. That's what happened to Jesus. Whenever he talked about grace, the Pharisees were right there, asking, "But what about the Law?"

I like Charles Swindoll's labels for the Pharisees. He calls them "the original grace-killers" and "the brain trust of legalism."

As I was scribbling notes from the Encyclopedia Judaica--a great resource that my friend, Scoti, recommended to me--I discovered that the Pharisees weren't all bad. They weren't all wrong about God.

Did you know the Pharisees believed God was an omnipotent (all powerful), all knowing spiritual being, all wise, all just, all merciful? They believed God loved his creatures and asked man to walk in His ways and to act justly and to love kindness. (Hhhmm. I've heard that before in Micah 6:8.) God gave man the ability to choose between good and evil--and wanted him to choose good.

I'm not going to argue with any of that, are you?

Here's where the Pharisees went wrong--way, way wrong.

They believed a spirit of holiness was obtained through a scrupulous observance of the Torah and by spreading traditional religious teaching.

Ooops! Wrong answer!

Thinking Out Loud: We Accidental Pharisees get it wrong too. We don't mean too. We're looking right at Jesus--and we're forgetting that He's all about grace. We want to talk to Him about how much time we've spent in Bible study, and then ask Him, "How am I doing?" He wants to tell us that's not the point. We keep holding up our little check lists of what we've done right and saying, "Look at this! Look at this!" And Jesus says," Will you just look at me?"

Grace.

Do You Validate?

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"Instead of striving for a manmade ticket to heaven based on high achievement and hard work (for which we get all the credit), I suggest we declare our own spiritual bankruptcy and accept God's free gift of grace."

~ Charles R. Swindoll, The Grace Awakening

I spent some time talking with Wise Guy yesterday. At one point, we even tried to figure out how long we've been talking things out--me, looking for answers, Wise Guy, knowing the answers but letting me keep on looking so I can figure it out for myself.

We've been at this a long time, folks.

I always take notes during our talks. Here's one from yesterday:

I keep taking my ticket to the wrong counter to get validated.

Now if the "ticket" represents me, what I'm realizing is I am looking to the wrong things, the wrong people, for validation.

Do you ever do that?

Just A Thought: I keep wanting certain people to validate my ticket and thereby say I have worth. I need to tear up that ticket--or at least turn it over to God so He can write "Grace" across it in big red letters. We Accidental Pharisees--we're trying to pay our way to heaven or we want someone else to validate our "ticket" for us. We forget about grace.

Wouldn't You Know It?

"Grace isn't a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It's a way to live." ~ Jackie Windspear

I'm in a Bible study with some friends. We've decided to study the topic of grace.
Timely, isn't it?
As an Accidental Pharisee On Her Way to Retirement, I have a lot to say about grace.
Not.
I have a lot to learn about grace.
I noticed one thing tonight as we discussed grace: Whenever you talk about grace, you end up talking about Pharisees. You really can't talk about one without talking about the other. The Pharisees "got" the Law--but they didn't get grace. And that's why Jesus made them so angry. Jesus was all about grace.
Being a good do-er, i.e. tell me what I need to do to be a good Christian--I learned the approved definition of grace: unmerited favor. Knowing the definition and living a life of grace are two very different things. I'm just beginning to learn that.
I discovered a new definition of grace, and I like this one better.
"Love that goes upward is worship; love that goes outward is affection; love that stoops is grace." (Donald Barnhouse, Bible scholar.)
Love that stoops is grace.

Just a Thought: We Accidental Pharisees get so caught up in what we're supposed to do and not do--and making sure somebody is noticing what we're doing or not doing--that we totally miss what God did for us. He offers us grace. The Bible says He lavishes us with grace (Ephesians 1:8). He loves us enought to stoop down and to offer us grace.