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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman The
Responsible Side Of Grace
Many of my senior citizen friends are
struggling over having to care for his or her spouse who has ongoing and
severe illnesses. "It's
seriously affecting the quality of my life," one friend told me.
"I'm now confined at home," another said.
Life is often consumed with caring for a loving spouse as we age,
and that requires a good measure of sacrifice.
All of the benefits associated with being a loving couple fade fast
in old age. My father's life
became a daily struggle after my mother suffered from a disabling stroke.
It's just life's reality for many senior citizens.
Life becomes about being a caregiver.
If you think about it, anything of importance in life
that we benefit from, including a loving spouse, comes with
responsibilities. As Christians we greatly
benefit from our relationship with Jesus.
We are benefactors of God's grace, and that certainly comes with
responsibilities. In all
Scriptural seriousness, we are caregivers of God's gift of grace.
Biblical grace can be
defined as God's sacrificial love extended to us who don't deserve it, love that
provides us the ability to accomplish His will in our lives.
That includes the ability to be responsible beneficiaries of His
grace. Think about it this
way. As we read in Acts 2:36,
Jesus is both Lord and Christ. As
Christ, Jesus offers Himself to us. As
Lord, we offer ourselves to Jesus. Jesus
being Christ suggests that God's grace is directed our way.
Jesus being Lord suggests that we are to be responsible to care for
all that God's grace provides us.
Since you are in a
relationship with Jesus, and since you are benefitting from God's grace, I
ask this question. Is God
benefititng from you being a caring beneficiary of His grace?
As in a loving marriage or in anything else we hold dear in life,
being a responsible caregiver is just the natural thing to be.
As my friend is now
sacrificing his life to care for his beloved wife, as did my father for my
mother, so as Christians we have a responsibility to care for God's very
expensive gift of grace that He has given us.
This requires a good measure of sacrifice on our part.
The apostle Paul called this being a living sacrifice, as we read
in Romans 12:1 and 2. I call
it the responsible side of grace.
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