Grace Habit

Everyone just "knows" that if you're a Christian you should read your Bible every day.  Also, everyone just "knows" that if you're a Christian you should pray every day.  And it is surely hard to imagine growing without these habits.

But what about Grace?  

But what about Love?

Can we have some conversation about the importance of these on the daily? What would that even look like? 

You know what I think is really funny?  People get really creeped out about the idea of Christians and Christ Followers daily participating in these two habits.  Sometimes they even get a tad cranky.  "Reading the Bible daily IS daily experiencing God's love."  

uh huh.  Okay.  So - I suppose yesterday (Valentine's day) you handed out Bibles? Oh you didn't? Hmmmm.  To be honest - I'm not sure we teach people to read the Bible as a means of absorbing God's love.  In fact - I think it's possible that somehow the church I grew up in taught me to open up my Bible, read, understand all the things I'm doing wrong and feel decently bad about that. Eesh.

Some people even get testy - as if daily soaking up God's love could ruin you spiritually.

what?

There HAS to be a better way.  Actually - I imagine that there are actually many better ways ... but come back tomorrow and we'll go a little deeper into at least one way to daily top off your tank with a full-and-slopping-over amount of God's love and grace.

Taking an Encouraging Amount

I traveled abroad in high school for a year and quickly learned that my new friends were horrified when the first time visiting their homes I responded to their hospitable question, "Would you like something to eat?" with a typically American "A glass of water please."  Whether my hosts were well-to-do doctors or hard-working farmers - they wanted me to trust in their hospitality and that it was really their pleasure to offer me what I wanted.  If I'd sincerely said "Ham and eggs, a slice of bread, and a side of hash-browns" - they'd have been and thrilled!

Some time after that year abroad I lived in a more diverse community than I'd grown up in - and found myself in exactly the same situation ... fabulous cooks of exquisite dishes that were at the very least going to blow my mind as they delighted my taste buds ... the only way to insult these chef's talents - was to take puny amounts and hold back.  

Now - on a regular basis I host people in my home and I truly LOVE to cook for them.  I LOVE it when someone goes off about my cooking. When it's sincere - such words are such a compliment - and make all the effort so very worth it.

Imagine then - the inestimable effort God has gone through to so lovingly bestow Grace on us! The cost to Him and His Son paid to make such grace not just available - but freely available is beyond calculation. Let us confidently, and like the grace-starved people we are - throw ourselves into devouring daily the feasts of Grace God makes available to us in all the forms they appear - answered prayers, laughter with friends, God's promises in Scripture, encouraging fellowship that fills us with hope.  Let us daily take from God an amount of Grace that will make Him smile with our trust in His provision.

7 Steps to Spiritual Strength

Here are 7 ways to really grow and strengthen your faith this year

1. Group up.  If you haven’t joined a campus ministry or fellowship group on campus – do it. The staff who run these groups are dedicated people who have devoted their lives to ministering students. Being a part of a group like this will teach you more about living out your faith in less time than anyone could learn on their own.  
2. Bible up.  Read it as many times as you like. Start studying your favorite parts. Allow yourself to get curious about the other parts.  Hungry for still more - then go ahead and study it with all sorts of great tools: concordances, maps, culturally and historically relevant information, meditate on it.  Still hungry for even more?  Ooooh!  Look at your bad self!  Go ahead and memorize the bits that speak to you deeply. 
3. Pray up.  The strongest Christians have long viewed prayer as the "breath of a Christian."  Prayer is the most natural thing in the world - until it gets complicated by lots of "shoulds" and "coulds".  We work hard in JC's to demystify prayer make prayer a refuge and meeting place between our busy daily lives and our loving Father in heaven.
4. Align.  This is the shortest way I can think to say “learn to do the Godly things that Godly people do the way Godly people do them.”  Besides reading your Bible and developing your prayer life, – be baptized, pray to receive the Holy Spirit, practice the spiritual disciplines, invest your time and talents on behalf of the group that feeds you. Model your life after your spiritual heros in Scripture, in history and around you in real life.  
5. Be authentic.  Commit to being authentic about your ups and downs, your lessons and your trials, your strengths and your weaknesses along the way.  Christians are fond of saying “walk your talk” … I think it’d actually work much better if we all just talked our walk.  Be honest.  Be real.  There is great power in a real, honest, authentic walk.
6. Become a "Let-it-Go-Pro".  Strategically hang on to what will help you - and that's it.  Letting go is trickier for some at first than for others - but the more you practice it - the easier it becomes - and the easier it will be to really enjoy the things you hang on to.
7. Stay humble.  Even if someone were to “get” this whole list – they would find that a truly mature faith encompasses so much more than these self-evident basics.  However much we learn – there is still more available.  Faith in Jesus is worthy of our life-long pursuit -  there are no "masters" of lists like this - only those who are more aware through experience of just how blessed by Grace they really are.
8. BONUS!  Have some fun along the way ... sometime Jesus tossed His posse into a boat and went fishing ... because they liked boats, and fishing, and relaxing.  

The Two Most Powerful Forces in the Verse

If Elijah's sweet chariots of fire come claim me right off my desk-chair just after I click "publish" and no other post can ever appear here - I'll be satisfied if this is all you know about us.  God's Love and God's Grace are the two most powerful forces in the universe.  You may say "it's ionic bonds" if you study chemistry, or you may say "gravity" if you get physics, or "evolution" if you're more of a biological sciences kind of geek - and those are all valid answers in those contexts.   In the context of faith and life though - I'm sticking to my guns here; it's Love & Grace - specifically God's love & God's grace.  It was Love that motivated God to create everything (John 1) and it was more love that motivated Him to reveal Himself to us through all that's around us - all that Christ did for us once we made it unquestionably clear we needed help; big time.  

And Grace - Grace is the force by which Christ's redemption of us works.  Love - the motivation for everything.  Grace - the fix-it tool for everything that happened next.  God's love moved Him to walk with the man and the woman in the garden in the cool of the day (Gen 3:8) - and however you might read all that comes next - love was the foundation to the plan - right up to the cross - and that love kicks off the work of grace in our lives so we can start to "get it" for ourselves.  

JC's Village exists as a place where any student can come and celebrate these two most powerful forces on earth can grow, hang out, belong, serve, impact, bask.  It's that simple.  

Thanks for stopping by.  Come again.

Love & Grace to you today!