"Who We Are Instead" pt.2
Living By God's Grace
Last week we began our series on "Who we are instead", by talking about how God has given us the grace to become His children, His princes and princesses. This week we're going to look at what exactly God's grace is, how we get it, and what it does for us.
The Bible says that when we are baptised, God fills us with His Spirit and makes us completely new creatures. "Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17).
This recreation into new creatures is accomplished when God fills us with His Holy Spirit, His very life! That is what Grace is—God's very life being given to us! Without this grace in our lives, nothing we could do would really mean anything. We could live better lives that Mother Teresa or Pope John Paul the Great did, but it wouldn't mean anything. Only by God's free gift of His Grace are our lives transformed.
This Grace comes to us through Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross. Then, in the sacrament of Baptism, we unite ourselves with Jesus' sacrifice, by dying to our old life of sin, being cleansed and filled with the Holy Spirit, and rising again to the new life of Grace. This is how our lives as sons and daughters of God begins. This is how we originally become His princes and princesses!
But God's Grace is not a one-time deal. Being a child of the King isn't the sort of thing you do just when you feel like it. It has to be a 24/7 reality in your lives. When you fight with your parents about their rules, they might give you the line, "As long as you're under my roof, you're gonna follow my rules!" God's not too much different...except He's everywhere, so we're always "under His roof" so to speak.
In the Old Testament, He gave Moses the Law, and the Israelites were supposed to keep it. Problem is, they couldn't. No one could. They could do their best, but they'd always fail. That's called sin—and it's still true of us today.
But with Jesus, He came and was able to keep the Law perfectly, because He was God. But because He was also one of us, a human being, He represented us to God. He paid the sacrifice that we could never be able to. Because of this, He gave us the opportunity to experience a new kind of Law, the Law of Grace.
On the outside, this Law seems not too much different from the Old Law. We still have to follow a bunch of rules, and by ourselves, these rules seem impossible to keep. But because of Jesus, we have a secret weapon! That's Grace!
Grace not only forgives us our sins when we do fail. Grace makes us entirely new creatures, and when we surrender to that Grace, we will actually fail less! This is because God fills us with His Holy Spirit, His own divine life! That's what Grace is! It's the actual, literal, powerful ability to live for God! It's not just a metaphor to say that we're new creatures! We may not look different. We may not always feel different. But we are!
Sometimes we can think of God's grace as "fire insurance" or a "get out of hell free" card. But Grace is so much more than merely getting to go to heaven when we die, or not having to go to hell. We limit our understanding of the infinite love of God when we treat it like an escape hatch from eternal torment! Grace is for us now! It makes us part of God's family now! It gives us power to live for Him now! It makes our lives fuller now!
Grace is completely a gift from God. Nothing we could do would be good enough to earn this precious gift—that's why it's called Grace! But at the same time, God's Grace actually makes us worthy of God's Grace! Think about that for a second!
Just like living the life of God isn't just a one-time or occasional thing, receiving God's Grace isn't just a one-time thing, either. That's why God has given us the Sacraments, which are physical things that bring us God's Grace.
What are they?
Some of these are 1 time dealies: Baptism and Confirmation, for example. Some of them seem like one-time dealies: Holy Orders and Matrimony—because the people only receive them once (well, with marriage, it's ideally only supposed to be once), but in reality, the sacrament isn't in the ceremony, but in the life that's lived as a result.
Finally, three of them are supposed to be received as often as necessary! Confession and anointing of the sick are ones that we should freely receive whenever we need them. The Eucharist, which is by far the most important sacrament after Baptism, should be taken all the time, as often as you can get it! That's because we're renewing that family membership that we get through Baptism, and at the same time, we're receiving Jesus into our lives, and His grace continues to transform us more and more!
God gives us these gifts of His Grace to enable us to live in Him and live for Him. Without these gifts, our spiritual life is stunted and we don't grow as well—just like when physically we don't eat right. At the same time, we need to receive the sacraments properly, with a correct disposition or attitude. And we need to put that grace to work. We need to actively serve God, making use of the gifts of Grace that He gives us. Otherwise we get spiritually "fat" and "bloated", and become unhealthy—just like if we didn't eat properly and never exercised!
Think of it this way: In the Middle East, there is a sea called the Dead Sea. It's called this because all the adjoining rivers flow into it, and none flow out. Therefore it has collected salt for centuries, without being able to filter any out. It could almost be more accurately described as "wet salt" rather than salty water! This area is dead. Nothing grows, because there is no fresh water.
Spiritually speaking, our lives can be "dead seas" if we never live out the life of Grace in us. If we never give the Grace we have received away, as God intended, then we are not giving His life! Look at the example of our Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary. The angel Gabriel described her as "Full of Grace" (Luke 1:28). Since Grace is the life of God in our lives, the Church rightly declares that Mary was Immaculate, since Grace and Sin cannot mix. But if Mary was Full of God's Grace, that He continues to bestow on her, then she would either become a dead, bloated Christian (which is surely not the case for our Mother!) or the Grace that God bestowed on her would pour over into the lives to whom she bestowed it!
It should be the same with us, according to the measure of Grace that God has given to us! We need to respond in obedience, and live that life of Grace. We need to bestow it on others through service, evangelisation, and prayer!
When we're living in God's Grace, we are new creatures, and we have a new purpose! God created us as His Workmanship (Ephesians 2:8-10—For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God—not because of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.). The Greek word for "workmanship", poena means masterpiece, and it's where we get our English word, "Poem". We're God's poetry, and we're created to actually change the world we live in! That'll be our talk next week!
Last week we began our series on "Who we are instead", by talking about how God has given us the grace to become His children, His princes and princesses. This week we're going to look at what exactly God's grace is, how we get it, and what it does for us.
The Bible says that when we are baptised, God fills us with His Spirit and makes us completely new creatures. "Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17).
This recreation into new creatures is accomplished when God fills us with His Holy Spirit, His very life! That is what Grace is—God's very life being given to us! Without this grace in our lives, nothing we could do would really mean anything. We could live better lives that Mother Teresa or Pope John Paul the Great did, but it wouldn't mean anything. Only by God's free gift of His Grace are our lives transformed.
This Grace comes to us through Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross. Then, in the sacrament of Baptism, we unite ourselves with Jesus' sacrifice, by dying to our old life of sin, being cleansed and filled with the Holy Spirit, and rising again to the new life of Grace. This is how our lives as sons and daughters of God begins. This is how we originally become His princes and princesses!
CCC1997 Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of his Body. As an "adopted son" he can henceforth call God "Father," in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church.
2 Peter 1:2-4—May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature.
But God's Grace is not a one-time deal. Being a child of the King isn't the sort of thing you do just when you feel like it. It has to be a 24/7 reality in your lives. When you fight with your parents about their rules, they might give you the line, "As long as you're under my roof, you're gonna follow my rules!" God's not too much different...except He's everywhere, so we're always "under His roof" so to speak.
In the Old Testament, He gave Moses the Law, and the Israelites were supposed to keep it. Problem is, they couldn't. No one could. They could do their best, but they'd always fail. That's called sin—and it's still true of us today.
But with Jesus, He came and was able to keep the Law perfectly, because He was God. But because He was also one of us, a human being, He represented us to God. He paid the sacrifice that we could never be able to. Because of this, He gave us the opportunity to experience a new kind of Law, the Law of Grace.
On the outside, this Law seems not too much different from the Old Law. We still have to follow a bunch of rules, and by ourselves, these rules seem impossible to keep. But because of Jesus, we have a secret weapon! That's Grace!
Grace not only forgives us our sins when we do fail. Grace makes us entirely new creatures, and when we surrender to that Grace, we will actually fail less! This is because God fills us with His Holy Spirit, His own divine life! That's what Grace is! It's the actual, literal, powerful ability to live for God! It's not just a metaphor to say that we're new creatures! We may not look different. We may not always feel different. But we are!
CCC2000 Sanctifying grace is an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it to live with God, to act by his love.
Sometimes we can think of God's grace as "fire insurance" or a "get out of hell free" card. But Grace is so much more than merely getting to go to heaven when we die, or not having to go to hell. We limit our understanding of the infinite love of God when we treat it like an escape hatch from eternal torment! Grace is for us now! It makes us part of God's family now! It gives us power to live for Him now! It makes our lives fuller now!
Grace is completely a gift from God. Nothing we could do would be good enough to earn this precious gift—that's why it's called Grace! But at the same time, God's Grace actually makes us worthy of God's Grace! Think about that for a second!
CCC2009 Filial adoption, in making us partakers by grace in the divine nature, can bestow true merit on us as a result of God's gratuitous justice. This is our right by grace, the full right of love, making us "co-heirs" with Christ and worthy of obtaining "the promised inheritance of eternal life." [Council of Trent (1547): DS 1546.] The merits of our good works are gifts of the divine goodness. [Cf. Council of Trent (1547): DS 1548] "Grace has gone before us; now we are given what is due. . . . Our merits are God's gifts." [St. Augustine, Sermo 298,4-5:PL 38,1367.]
Just like living the life of God isn't just a one-time or occasional thing, receiving God's Grace isn't just a one-time thing, either. That's why God has given us the Sacraments, which are physical things that bring us God's Grace.
What are they?
Baptism
Confirmation
Eucharist
Confession
Anointing of the Sick
Holy Orders
Matrimony
Some of these are 1 time dealies: Baptism and Confirmation, for example. Some of them seem like one-time dealies: Holy Orders and Matrimony—because the people only receive them once (well, with marriage, it's ideally only supposed to be once), but in reality, the sacrament isn't in the ceremony, but in the life that's lived as a result.
Finally, three of them are supposed to be received as often as necessary! Confession and anointing of the sick are ones that we should freely receive whenever we need them. The Eucharist, which is by far the most important sacrament after Baptism, should be taken all the time, as often as you can get it! That's because we're renewing that family membership that we get through Baptism, and at the same time, we're receiving Jesus into our lives, and His grace continues to transform us more and more!
God gives us these gifts of His Grace to enable us to live in Him and live for Him. Without these gifts, our spiritual life is stunted and we don't grow as well—just like when physically we don't eat right. At the same time, we need to receive the sacraments properly, with a correct disposition or attitude. And we need to put that grace to work. We need to actively serve God, making use of the gifts of Grace that He gives us. Otherwise we get spiritually "fat" and "bloated", and become unhealthy—just like if we didn't eat properly and never exercised!
Think of it this way: In the Middle East, there is a sea called the Dead Sea. It's called this because all the adjoining rivers flow into it, and none flow out. Therefore it has collected salt for centuries, without being able to filter any out. It could almost be more accurately described as "wet salt" rather than salty water! This area is dead. Nothing grows, because there is no fresh water.
Spiritually speaking, our lives can be "dead seas" if we never live out the life of Grace in us. If we never give the Grace we have received away, as God intended, then we are not giving His life! Look at the example of our Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary. The angel Gabriel described her as "Full of Grace" (Luke 1:28). Since Grace is the life of God in our lives, the Church rightly declares that Mary was Immaculate, since Grace and Sin cannot mix. But if Mary was Full of God's Grace, that He continues to bestow on her, then she would either become a dead, bloated Christian (which is surely not the case for our Mother!) or the Grace that God bestowed on her would pour over into the lives to whom she bestowed it!
It should be the same with us, according to the measure of Grace that God has given to us! We need to respond in obedience, and live that life of Grace. We need to bestow it on others through service, evangelisation, and prayer!
When we're living in God's Grace, we are new creatures, and we have a new purpose! God created us as His Workmanship (Ephesians 2:8-10—For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God—not because of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.). The Greek word for "workmanship", poena means masterpiece, and it's where we get our English word, "Poem". We're God's poetry, and we're created to actually change the world we live in! That'll be our talk next week!
Labels: St. Andrew's, Who We Are Instead
posted by Gregory at 11:20 p.m.
3 Comments:
hello greg!
my first visit to your blog and whoa! your entries are long like kataron's! =)))
btw, i graduated from a college back where i'm from called the St Andrew's Junior College! =) but it's anglican... not catholic tho...
cheers!
sharon
Hey Sharon! Nice to see you around!
Yeah, I talk a lot. Hopefully what I say is a little more relevant to life and more uplifting than what Kataron has to say.
And hopefully, it makes more sense, lol.
But you should have known I talk a lot from my responses on your own blog!
God bless!
(That's cool about the St. Andrew thing, btw. He's a good guy.)
So Greg. Many many moons ago I said to a younger Greg, "My son, I shall comment on your blog."
I remain true to this promise with the following comment:
I can show you the world!
Shining, shimmering, splended!
Tell me princess now when did
you last let your heart decide?
I can open your eyes,
take you wonder by wonder.
Over, sideways, and under
on a magic carpet ride!
A whole new world!
A new fantabulas point of HOO-AH!
Jees.. Must I degrade myself so?
Yeah.. Probably.
Onward! Baseball ho!
~Dace~
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