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The Elements of Grace
written by Michael McBane

I must rearrange this title, and say some elements of grace for I found that as I began to write that I could write and write on grace.

Grace....in my life I have know a handful of people who exuded what I have called grace. Their manor carried it, they wore it like a garment but it was never proclaimed it was pronounced in who they were and what they revealed or brought into a room. Like a fragrance that was noticed but not cheap. Grace was their demeanor. It defined how they treated people. They had an authority that never demanded in a verbal command. You were not quick to transgress the unseen aura around them. I loved to be with them and always felt richer for the time I spent with them. Dignity seemed to accompany the people who walked in grace you might call it a poise. There is something to be learned from this.

I have also seen some who walk in such grace abused. This grace that some walk with does not speak it makes room for itself simply by being. It is not unbecoming. Those who abuse those who walk in such a grace need to speak but not softly. They demand and are argumentative in nature. Those who abuse people of grace tend to leave them barren and they are not aware that they do so.

I have begun using these descriptions to set the tone of my purpose in writing these words. I know I am incomplete in this letter but though my words are not vast in exploration they do help set the table.

Grace as it concerns God is a word that has evoked many interpretations, teachings and a certain amount of rancor in this day that certainly lacks ‘grace.’ Truth is being strained from the false. Do I even want to enter this room? I will tell a few stories and offer limited insight.

Many years ago our family was walking through a crowded mall on a Saturday afternoon. We had been on a fast track learning the language and ways of the Lord. This day we were just musing about. Suddenly my wife begins to break down crying. Not a few tears but a full on gut cry. At first we started to almost laugh because it came out of no where and was so spontaneous. We stopped and I tried to engage,”Honey what is going on?” She had no idea, but felt as if everything, everything beyond description had suddenly been exposed and was collapsing upon her. She was being crushed emotionally. I could feel the intense agitation around us. We sat on a bench and I prayed, the girls prayed in the spirit. It seemed like this invasion of sorts lasted forever but perhaps it was five minutes. Then the Lord’s peace came upon her and she relaxed. We just sat for a time. Not understanding or knowing what was going on. We then went to the car and drove home. The Lord then came to my wife and began to tell her what He had allowed to happen. He said, “I lifted my grace from you. I wanted you to know, and understand how my grace insulates you in life from the evil of the air. It is crushing and without my grace you could not stand. But what is more man would fall into an insane apostasy suddenly. There is a general grace over the earth. Its like a governor over the implosion of evil. This grace will begin to lift in time but those who walk with Me will remain in My grace.”

This is a story that gives a large perspective to the desire of God to protect us from the evil one. It reveals His patience which is grace.

The scriptures tell us that those who love Him are kept in perfect peace. This from my perspective would be an element of grace.

The kindness of the Lord leads us to repentance, grace then involves God’s kindness. It exposes sin and leads us to repentance. It is the ability to recognize when the Holy Spirit convicts us of not being where we should be and gives us opportunity to come forward into the new place that God is calling us into. It is a response to the command to, “Follow Me.” So grace is the will that is formed to respond to the demand of God’s voice to “come up here.’

Grace is when we are drawn to pray with the Lord not at Him. It is when we pray with an understanding that the Holy Spirit provides such as, “Our Father who art in heaven, hollowed be Thy name.” we are drawn to ask for and desire to participate in the holiness of God as our Father, we see the highway of provision extend to us and we engage in response from a contrite and broken place but at the same time from a child like place of expectation. We anticipate God’s goodness because we have in faith been drawn by grace to see more then we had before. This is a invitation that grace extends to us as God’s children.

Because grace enables us to see the kindness of God we do not approach the Lord as a heavy handed God who is destructive in nature. We in seeing the wonder of His love more and more each day and are undone with the spectrum of the life we see. We are in a place of awe that challenges us to be done with lesser things. We see that to live with less then what we are offered in the divine communion is destructive. It would be leaving the garden of grace. We hold this as a gift of worth that we cannot exchange and this is so incredibly spectacular that when our flesh falls we can feel the filth of something that troubles our spirit so much that we must ask God to forgive us for so that we can delight in the elements of His grace fully again. We long to return to His heart or lap. To where He asks us to be. When we begin to fellowship with the Lord in places that provide a greater understanding of unbroken relationship to Him we cannot stand to be away from that pure place. It is going from hope to hope and glory to glory.

We could take the text of Paul’s words found in 1 Corinthians 13 about love and use the word grace as he used love. It would be appropriate.

Grace reveals to me that I am not like God yet I am created in His image. It reveals to me that Christ humbled Himself and became a man and was obedient to the point of death so that I might live and step into the place of awing contradiction that gives me the grace to stand in a place before the Father as Christ takes me before Him. I am led by Christ before the Father, He leads me in prayer, in worship. He allows me to see the unseen and the unseen beauty of God. My rebellion must disintegrate or how can I remain? Some refuse to even allow their spirits to nudge close to this type of relationship because it cost anyone who tastes such goodness, it costs them everything. Some refuse to give it all and cannot be loved fully or love as they might.

I believe that there is consequence to sin, or to bad behavior. I believe there is a hell. And we do not have to wait to the here after to know the erosion of such consequence. I would rather have forgiveness be part of the fabric of my life then disregard it. I do not regard it in a flippant way but with a humility that is cultivated in desiring to please God because I love Him. It is the same as feeling estranged in relationship to my wife or children or anyone. That estrangement is at times brought on by a willful and deliberate self centered demand or something I have over looked because I was stubborn even blinded in my understanding. But for me the separation is always uncomfortable, it does not allow for the wholeness of life to prevail. Maybe my language was wrong or the timing of my actions or words. It then comes down to clearing the garbage of my sin away. So I must decide will I adjust my mind set, my vision or perspective for the sake of serving. I think that here I have not fully paid attention to the Lord because I find that there is a grace that He gives to live among each other I have stepped around this communication that God offers. So in seeing the full picture here I am graced to understand how God is not separate from the intricate ways of my life. I accepted the invitation to know Him in grace and in doing so I saw how He is not distant but ever present. So I in asking for forgiveness also ask the Lord because my transgression effects a vast horizon of relationships.

Let me present what I think is an error in thinking. I must make a choice to repent, is that choice always one that corrects my behavior forever? No. Does that mean I was not sincere? Not necessarily. What about my motives? Either way do I wait to seek forgiveness until I know that I will never transgress here again? No! We can not judge repentance but be thankful that the grace of kindness has made a way for it to begin. To be willing to repent does not nullify or weaken grace it enlarges it. Remember how Jesus talked about the multiple times of 70 times 7 in regards to repentance.

Does this mean I am not righteous because of the completed work of Christ? No. Does this mean that I am striving to complete in my flesh what God has begun in the Holy Spirit? No. I hate the word balance but in some ways to walk with God requires that we walk in the balance of divine tensions. We are not where we were but we are not where we are going either. To live within this creative tension is grace.

Grace is the enabling factor or oil of God. It provides the understanding of God’s love to us by showing us the Triune family of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Here we see the heart that serves in all things. In language, in exchange, in purpose. It is not a relationship that demands its own way. It extends life and goes out of its way to do so. It exceeds time and allows man to step into the elements of eternal participation.

Grace to me seems to be ever expansive and revealing of the love of God. But it is also forgiving in nature and it will retain its true form.

Does grace allow for correction, for discipline? Yes. It is how it is brought and the foundation it is brought from and built upon that allows for it.

In Galatians 5: 19 through 24 we are told of the deeds of the flesh that will increase among us. These characteristics are not the fruit of grace they abuse grace. “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and the things like these, of which I forewarn you just as I have forewarned you that those who practice such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

Clearly we can move into the strength of Christ to crucify the flesh or is Paul a lier? What can such strength nothing but grace.

Grace does not divide its own house because it understands that it vital to its life. Grace is serving in its nature. And it is from this posture that it extends life. it It has vision to retain life. But it does set things in order as Paul did in Galatians 5.