Tag: Grace

What My Children Taught Me About Grace

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Daddy!

As I take my keys out of my pocket, the piano stops and the stampede begins. My children rush to the back door and fling it wide before I can unlock it. I am enveloped in hugs, and my day is made.

This is the scene at my house many times when I get home from work. It doesn’t always happen, and I don’t presume it will continue on indefinitely. (And it doesn’t happen only for me!) But, what a blessing it is! God has given my kids a love for me that I don’t deserve, and the occasional exuberance is wonderful.

This end-of-day greeting isn’t just a blessing of fatherhood. It’s a picture of God’s grace.

A Picture of Grace

I’m far from a perfect father. I’m frequently impatient, too quick to anger, and sometimes just mean or clumsy with my children’s feelings. In an honest accounting, I don’t deserve the extravagant love my children show me.

But my children give me what I don’t deserve. Instead of a cold shoulder, they embrace me. Instead of hesitating, they run. They let me know, unmistakably, that they are glad to see me.

I feel immediate acceptance when I peer through our back window and see those small, smiling faces. I don’t need to bring anything, say anything, or do anything. In that moment, their love does not depend on what I have done for them or what I might do for them. The greeting I receive has no relation to my recent behavior toward them at all—on most days I haven’t seen them for almost eight hours.

This sounds familiar, right? My children’s love is a small, imperfect pointer toward the grace of God. His constant, lavish, maximum love toward those who don’t deserve it—this is his grace and the heartbeat of the Christian life.

A Biblical Truth

Don’t just take my word for it. And don’t let a sentimental fact about my family convince you God is like this. This picture resonates with me because it is the description of divine love we see in the Bible.

The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. (Psalm 103:8–12, ESV)

And God’s grace is fully and finally realized in the giving of his son for sinners.

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:3–7, ESV)

Embracing Grace

Grace like this demands a response. Overflowing love, once offered, changes us in one way or another.

Do you know the grace of God? You have never been loved like this, so it might seem unreal. And yet, it is certain. Because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we can enter God’s house. We don’t need to sneak in a window, we don’t knock ashamed—God opens the door himself.

He is glad to see you. He invites you to sit down with him and rest. And the music starts to play once again.

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Links for the Weekend (10/8/2021)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

The Gentleness of God

God’s gentleness is one of his often-overlooked traits. And how precious it is!

So too, in light of this, we can hardly be surprised by the fact that the gentleness of God shines through in the life of the incarnate Son. He is truly the one who is gentle and lowly. In all his dealings with people in every circumstance of life – right down to his concern for his mother at the cross – his gentle spirit is manifest in his heart for others.

How Moms Can Model God’s Grace

Here’s an excerpt of a book by Gloria Furman. She writes about the way a deep understanding of God’s grace shapes the life of a mother. (As I often note, this is not just for mothers!)

As one hymn writer wrote, “All the fitness he requireth is to feel your need of him.” Grace is the most important thing for us to keep in mind as we shape the expectations of our home. Our children need to grow up knowing, “We always trust God because he’s willing and able to help us,” and, “We always praise God because he is our most valuable treasure.” And we need to get up every morning knowing, “I always trust God because he’s willing and able to help me.”

Men, Are You Submissive?

The Bible calls us all to be submissive. Michael Kruger draws out some implications of this for men. (Not just for men!)

Perhaps, then, we need to recalibrate the way we think about—and talk about—submission in the church. Rather than repeatedly focusing on just one example (Eph. 5:22), we need to call all Christians to submit to whatever authorities are over them. 

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article written by Allan Edwards called Remember Who You Are. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

A Man Under Authority

Posted onAuthorSarah Wisniewski

When the psalmist encouraged us to meditate on God’s word, I don’t think he had children’s songs in mind. But if you want to have biblical stories, words, and truths cycling through your mind every waking moment, you could do worse than to have a child who only ever wants to listen to one biblical children’s music collection. 

If this post were part of a series, it would be Part II of “Truths Sarah Learned from Children’s Songs” (see Part I here). This time the song was “The Centurion’s Secret” by The Donut Man, an overall-clad, mustachioed song leader and children’s show host from my childhood, who I rediscovered on Amazon Music. The song tells the story of the healing of the centurion’s servant from Matthew 8:5–13 (also Luke 7:1–10). Sometime around the billionth listen, as the chorus replayed a fourth time, a piece of the story clicked for me in a way it never had before. 

“I, Too”

I was familiar with the general narrative: A centurion approaches Jesus (or sends someone to him, depending which gospel account you read) with a request to heal his dear servant. Jesus offers to go to the servant, but the centurion states that he is not worthy to have Jesus come under his roof and that Jesus can simply speak a word and heal the servant—which indeed, Jesus does. 

But there’s an odd line in there that I never quite understood. As the centurion assures Jesus he doesn’t need to come, he says: “For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it” (Matthew 8:9).

He’s certainly indicating that he understands that a person with authority can cause things to be done without their hands-on intervention. If he tells one of his soldiers to carry a message, the message will be delivered without the centurion traveling with it personally. Likewise, the centurion knew that a man with authority, like Jesus, could simply give the word for the servant to be healed, and it would happen. 

But he didn’t describe himself—and Jesus—as a man with authority; he said they were men under authority. At first, to me that seemed demeaning to Jesus. Jesus is the all-powerful God of the universe in human form. He was instrumental in creation itself (John 1:3)! How dare the centurion suggest that Jesus was subject to anyone else. 

Finally, while my daughter sang along in the back seat, it clicked: The centurion didn’t only believe that Jesus was able to heal his servant; he understood why Jesus was able to do it.

Just like the centurion knew that he received his authority to command his soldiers from those in authority over him, he understood that Jesus drew his authority from the Father. Jesus consistently described himself this way, such as in John 14:10: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.” 

Declarations like these drew anger and unbelief from the religious leaders of Israel. It took this Roman occupier to see that Jesus did his great works, not to build his own glory, but on the authority of and for the glory of the one who sent him, God the Father. No wonder Jesus remarked, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith” (Matthew 8:10).

“He Marveled at Him”

Throughout the gospels Jesus taught that his hearers must believe that he is from the Father in order to be saved and have eternal life. This centurion believed what the religious leaders missed, that Jesus was exactly who he said he was.

The centurion’s statement reflected a second aspect of true faith that, again, the religious leaders missed. This comes through most clearly in Luke’s retelling, where the centurion doesn’t even presume to approach Jesus himself. He sends the Jewish elders to Jesus first, and they plead the man’s works: “He is worthy to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue” (Luke 7:4–5). The elders assume that Jesus will be impressed by loyalty to Israel and acts of piety. 

Upon Jesus drawing closer to the house, though, the centurion sends out his own friends with a personal message: “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. Therefore I did not presume to come to you” (Luke 7:6–7), followed by his statement about Jesus’s authority. The Jewish elders argued for the centurion’s worthiness; the centurion knew his unworthiness and made his case solely on Jesus’s mercy and power. At this, Jesus marveled (Luke 7:9).

Our flesh, like the Jewish elders, wants to plead our case based on our merits, our church attendance, our volunteer hours, our consistent devotional times. We are perhaps especially vulnerable as Christians in America; our culture values self-sufficiency and pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. 

The centurion understood that he had no bootstraps to pull when it came to Jesus. The “John Wayne” approach that worked for leading troops wouldn’t sway a divine man who taught about loving one’s enemies and seeking a kingdom not of this world. This man who was so large in his own world knew that, before Jesus, he had no standing. 

Like the centurion, we need to see rightly what Jesus loves, what makes him marvel. He is not impressed by our works, even the best that we can bring. He marvels at true faith, the kind that brings nothing and asks everything, trusting in Jesus’ authority—and his goodness.

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Links for the Weekend (3/12/2021)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

The Promise Is for You and Your Children

Here’s an article by Iain Duguid about why we baptize children in our church.

There was no area of his life that he held back from the Father. In him, the symbolism of circumcision and baptism became a terrible reality, as God the Father literally cut him off for our sin. He was baptized with the baptism of God’s wrath against sin, so that we might receive the sweet promises of baptism for the remission of sins.

The Counsel and Care of the Elderly

Nick Batzig mourns the way many young Christians consider and relate to older Christians in their church. He urges us to honor, respect, and care for the elderly among us.

A time is coming when you may be able to say with David, “I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his children begging bread” (Psalm 37:25). Such a statement is born from years of experiencing the sustaining, delivering, and providing grace of God through many trials and challenges. Until that time, I would humbly encourage younger men and women to seek the counsel of the elderly, to honor and respect them, and to care for them in their time of need.

Helping a Covenant Child Prepare a Testimony

For a child growing up in the church, talking about their “coming to faith” is often difficult. Barry York provides some good questions that parents and grandparents can use to help children in this situation.

For many teen-aged believers who grew up in a Christian home and attended church regularly do not remember a time when they did not believe in Christ. Though they have known experiences with sin and trusting in Christ through their life, they are hesitant about naming a time of conversion. Forcing them to come up with such a time can be a way of unknowingly sowing harmful seeds into their souls, as they start looking for an experience that creates doubt rather than looking to Christ with simple yet real faith.

Jen Wilkin on Grace vs. Permissiveness

Jen Wilkin does a great job in this short (less than one minute) video making the distinction between permissiveness and a Christian understanding of grace.

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called The Good News of the Ascension of Jesus. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

Thanks to Phil A for his help rounding up links this week.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

I Am Not Enough

Posted onAuthorSarah Wisniewski

When my son was born, due to stay-at-home orders we had none of the external resources we had planned to lean on. Play dates and church programs for our daughter, housekeeping and childcare help for us, even parks and library outings disappeared overnight. 

It was just Zack and me—and we were not enough.

We were not enough to be the sole source for our two-year-old’s social interactions. We were not enough for the bottomless needs of a newborn. I struggled and usually failed to live out the fruits of the Spirit while tired and stressed. Of course, we had never been “enough,” but before we could hide behind all the things we used to supplement our own parenting. 

It’s crushing to know as a parent that you are not enough for your kids. 

A Sufficient Grace

Paul also confronted his own weakness, a mysterious “thorn.” He pleaded with God to remove it, but God did not. Paul wrote:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9–10)

When we are not enough, God’s grace is sufficient. God’s grace is sufficient to preserve my kids through hardship and loneliness. God’s grace is sufficient to forgive my failures, like when I snap at my kids because I’m just done with today. And by God’s grace our weakness makes room for the power of Christ to fill us with the ability to serve and give and love when there’s nothing left in us. 

We are not called to hide our weaknesses or project an image that we’ve got it all together. Paul says he boasts of his weakness, because that makes it clear it is Christ at work, not himself. 

A Sufficient Gospel

God working through weakness sits at the core of the gospel. Paul points out in the following chapter that Christ himself “was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God” (2 Corinthians 13:4). Christ became weak, so weak that he died, and through his “weakness,” God demonstrated his power to save. 

We can lay at Jesus’s scarred feet the places where we feel we are not up to the task. Jesus doesn’t ask us to be enough; he asks us to lean on him. Much like God gave Paul his thorn, he places things in our lives—like pandemics and newborns—that we are unable to handle. These things drive us back to the cross, reminding us that we do not live by our own strength but by Jesus’s power through the Holy Spirit. 

*Record scratch*

There’s a rub here: Some days I still find myself feeling spent by 11 a.m., and Jesus has yet to show up to watch my kids while I take a nap. What does it mean to live in the power of Christ in the day-to-day? 

A lot of prayer, for one. Prayer has (at least) two benefits. One, you truly are soliciting supernatural help from the Lord of the universe. Two, the act of praying leads you to rehearse the truth of the gospel. I find myself repeating back to God his own truths, like God’s patience with us and Jesus’ boundless sacrifice. Bringing these truths to mind can put your own struggles in context and lead you to have more patience with, say, the sixth time you’ve asked the toddler to put on socks. Totally hypothetical example.

God also placed us in a community. It was hard to take care of my family without support—because God designed people to need one another. Christians individually and the church collectively are God’s literal hands and feet in the world. It is unlikely that Jesus will personally show up to do my dishes. But he might remind me that my soapy hands are being used to serve the tiny neighbors in my home, just like Jesus’ pierced ones served me. 

In those early weeks of my son’s life, I felt numb with the truth of my own inadequacy. God had placed more on me than I could handle, and it was crushing me. While I could have happily gone my life long without such a stern reminder, I have also never seen so clearly that every step was not in my own strength. God—in his mercy!—places overwhelming circumstances in our way, not to cause us to rise to the occasion, but to drive us, like the crack of a whip or the sting of spurs, to himself.

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Links for the Weekend (5/15/2020)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Quarantine Exposes Our Need for Grace

Joshua Zeichik relates some of the frustrations he’s encountered when working from home during the pandemic and some of the sinful ways he has responded. He turns to James 4 to show us how to take inventory of our hearts when we get angry.

The tendency in all of us, when we feel the pressure of not getting what we want, is to get frustrated with those around us. But when we see that kind of response come out of our hearts, we should realize that God is being gracious with us to reveal an area to grow in.

A Six-Part Teaching Series on Parenting

In 2011 Jen and Jeff Wilkin taught a six-part parenting class at their home church in Texas (The Village Church). The sessions are filled with humor and biblical instruction on how to be intentional with the gospel. Parents of children of all ages will find encouragement in these lessons.

Critique Gently, Encourage Fiercely

Scott Sauls writes about loneliness and how we can find family by belonging to a local church.

How do we experience loneliness-slaying love in the midst of imperfect, messy community? It has been said, “Be kind because everyone you meet is fighting a hard, hidden battle.” As we limp toward transparency and community and friendship with our own fears and insecurities, we recognize that we aren’t alone. We are all much afraid. We all feel more insecure than confident, more weak than strong, more unlovable than lovely, more irredeemable than redeemed. When we see that we are not alone, we can reach out to one another. Don’t underestimate the power of words.  While shaming words can take courage out of a soul, encouraging and affirming words can put courage back in.

Thanks to Maggie A and Phil A for their help in rounding up links this week!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here.