Outcast
A few weeks ago I was privileged to hear Bob Oliver at Grace Vineyard Christian Fellowship (www.gvcf.org) speak and, although it was not the main point of the message, something he said has been swimming around in my head and heart ever since. He said that grace - the REAL Jesus - can not remain where law presides.
As I have thought about this and considered times in my life when it seemed my fellow believers were behaving in a way that smelled of law and I have felt like an outcast because of it - or when I have been smelling like law and casting out others, I realized that this is yet another way that I have been living wrong-side-out. Father has been revealing more and more of Himself to me in the past few years. And as He does I see just how little I really knew of Him and how twisted my concepts and beliefs and faith have been. And as I see these things in His light, I begin to turn them inside out and they suddenly make sense when revealed by His loving hand. And they look a lot prettier when turned His-side-out. This is one of those times... Although I understand how grace has set me free from the law, I wasn't fully comprehending the after effects of that understanding.
As Pastor Bob went through various passages in the gospel of Luke to present His message, I kept seeing that Jesus was accepted, loved, welcomed and followed by the people I would think would have cast Him out. My wrong-side-out thinking has always had me convinced that standing up for Jesus to the world - to the tax collectors and prostitutes and rowdy fishermen - was where I would find myself being an outcast. It is true that I, as a follower of Jesus, don't fit with the world but when the grace of the REAL Jesus is shining from me, the world doesn't cast me out but they draw in to see love and mercy and receive it for themselves. Some may push me away but mostly the world is longing for authentic love and acceptance and life and truth.
And just like I saw Jesus hanging with the wordly crowd and seeing how they believed in Him and embraced His grace, I saw that Jesus was rejected and cast out by the religious crowd - the teachers of the law. They were so concerned with the rules and regulations that they judged and condemned Him and His followers for loving and healing and offering life and salvation by grace to people that were not followers of the law. They were so concerned with judgment and condemnation that they lived from law in an effort to prevent their own condemnation while their judging and condemning others proved they could never perfectly uphold the law. What a cycle of defeat! Jesus was in this world but not of it, coming to this world to seek and save the lost. He was the perfect and sinless Son of God - yet He was condemned and cast out by those who lived where law presided.
Grace is a person - as Frank Friedmann says (www.livingingrace.com) - Grace is the REAL Jesus. And the REAL Jesus could not remain where the law presided. Now - I'm going His-side-out - He couldn't remain there NOT because they cast Him out. He couldn't remain in that place because He had fulfilled and completed the law - setting us free from it by His grace! Remaining there was completely contradictory to His purpose on earth. And so, the beauty of this side of His light and love, is that I cannot remain there, either. When I see law presiding and teaching the rules and regulations and not the grace, I must speak the truth of Grace and if it is not received, become an outcast! I don't have to live under law that pushes me to perform and judge my worth and position by what I do or don't do. I don't have to feel like an outcast when others who are living where law presides condemn and judge me because I don't fit their mold. And I don't have to fear being cast out by the worldly folk as I take Grace by the hand and let Him lead me to the hearts longing for His love and mercy. And I won't remain in places where law presides - Grace won't let me.
Amy
As I have thought about this and considered times in my life when it seemed my fellow believers were behaving in a way that smelled of law and I have felt like an outcast because of it - or when I have been smelling like law and casting out others, I realized that this is yet another way that I have been living wrong-side-out. Father has been revealing more and more of Himself to me in the past few years. And as He does I see just how little I really knew of Him and how twisted my concepts and beliefs and faith have been. And as I see these things in His light, I begin to turn them inside out and they suddenly make sense when revealed by His loving hand. And they look a lot prettier when turned His-side-out. This is one of those times... Although I understand how grace has set me free from the law, I wasn't fully comprehending the after effects of that understanding.
As Pastor Bob went through various passages in the gospel of Luke to present His message, I kept seeing that Jesus was accepted, loved, welcomed and followed by the people I would think would have cast Him out. My wrong-side-out thinking has always had me convinced that standing up for Jesus to the world - to the tax collectors and prostitutes and rowdy fishermen - was where I would find myself being an outcast. It is true that I, as a follower of Jesus, don't fit with the world but when the grace of the REAL Jesus is shining from me, the world doesn't cast me out but they draw in to see love and mercy and receive it for themselves. Some may push me away but mostly the world is longing for authentic love and acceptance and life and truth.
And just like I saw Jesus hanging with the wordly crowd and seeing how they believed in Him and embraced His grace, I saw that Jesus was rejected and cast out by the religious crowd - the teachers of the law. They were so concerned with the rules and regulations that they judged and condemned Him and His followers for loving and healing and offering life and salvation by grace to people that were not followers of the law. They were so concerned with judgment and condemnation that they lived from law in an effort to prevent their own condemnation while their judging and condemning others proved they could never perfectly uphold the law. What a cycle of defeat! Jesus was in this world but not of it, coming to this world to seek and save the lost. He was the perfect and sinless Son of God - yet He was condemned and cast out by those who lived where law presided.
Grace is a person - as Frank Friedmann says (www.livingingrace.com) - Grace is the REAL Jesus. And the REAL Jesus could not remain where the law presided. Now - I'm going His-side-out - He couldn't remain there NOT because they cast Him out. He couldn't remain in that place because He had fulfilled and completed the law - setting us free from it by His grace! Remaining there was completely contradictory to His purpose on earth. And so, the beauty of this side of His light and love, is that I cannot remain there, either. When I see law presiding and teaching the rules and regulations and not the grace, I must speak the truth of Grace and if it is not received, become an outcast! I don't have to live under law that pushes me to perform and judge my worth and position by what I do or don't do. I don't have to feel like an outcast when others who are living where law presides condemn and judge me because I don't fit their mold. And I don't have to fear being cast out by the worldly folk as I take Grace by the hand and let Him lead me to the hearts longing for His love and mercy. And I won't remain in places where law presides - Grace won't let me.
Amy
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