“Grace is the active expression of His love.” – Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel
If you really want to understand grace, you need to look at God’s love. Grace is a manifestation of the love of God that He offers us in spite of all that we don’t do or refuse to recognize. Imagine if it when by what we deserved and not by His grace. We’d be in more than a pickle.
I like the way that SharpIron displayed Manning’s quotes on grace. Itsabeautifulgospel.com posted about Manning’s All is Grace. Pastor Nancy speaks out on both books on her blog, Michael Daly posted YouTube videos of Manning speaking on the subject of grace. We’ve got a lot of folks talking up both of these books on their blogs and sites.
Talk is cheap, though. Isn’t that how the adage goes? Let’s start applying what we have been tossing around about grace in theory. Let’s get out of the laboratory and make some headway with some real-time and real-life experiences with grace rather than experiments.
Manning just highlighted what has already been revealed. The Bible says that we should recognize “the gift of God”- that is our salvation- that has come forth by the grace of God through faith (Ephesians 2:8-10). These other bloggers spoke on how Manning treated the subject. Some fully agreed with him, while others might have had some issues with parts of the concept. Needless to say, the books did their work. They drove people to return to their Bibles and search the Scriptures for their answers, not just leave it at what Manning had to say.
Let grace weigh heavy upon your heart until it cruishes anything beyond love for God. Your love for God will cause you to forgive more, to offer kindness more often and provide grace as frequently as opportunity presents itself. Let the gravity of grace do its work on you, so that God will have the glory through your words that are “seasoned with grace” and your actions that, like our Lord and Christ, are “full of grace.”
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