Pancakes Please! And Don't Forget Grace!

Um I feel like I just stood up on stage. Stop staring at me already would ya!! Na not really. Well here goes nothing people.

Rules. We have to live by them. We were all out to eat for breakfast a couple months ago. There were alot of us eating in this sorta greasy spoon dinner in Granite City, IL. If you have been there you know that there is alot of these things around. I think the main staple of dietiary supplements comes from places like this scattered all over the place there. Anyways, we were all chimming in our orders to the waitress one by one and she kept telling us all our options for what came with, what didn't and what we could not have with our particular breakfast fare that we were ordering.

My son Tanner is just staring up at the waitress in complete disbelief, who keeps telling us that we can have toast, can't have hashbrowns instead of toast, but you can have hashbrowns instead of bacon and on and on. You get the scenario that is unfolding here. Tanner in complete amazement of the complexities of ordering at the greasy spoon cafe, slams down his spoon and fork and exclaims, "Man, there are too many rules here!!! I want to leave!" Man I feel like that everyday. He was just one step ahead of the game. Well even though I shouldn't get caught up in the rules of life, which are for the most part there for our own good, I must admit that I have allowed myself many times to get very entangled in the entrapments of the "rules" of God.

Let me explain. It all really revolves around grace, not rules but it helped me get where I wanted to go. You see before Christ came, there was the Law. Rules. All lived under the Law. After Christ came to redeem us from our cruddy sins and messed up worldview, through his grace, we were freed from the Law. You all know that. Just like I do. Law vs. grace. But do you really know it. Do you live it out. I'll speak from my perspective. You see I used to believe, through how I came to know all about God growing up in church, that you were saved by God's grace but you better watch out. If you slip up just a tad bit, stray just little from the "way", that God was waiting with a huge spiritual sledge hammer just aching to slam it on the tops of our little heads. The Law. Not grace right? This had always made me feel continually guilty and like a no good, second fiddle christian. That's exactly how the enemy wanted me to feel. To live under the condemnation of living a lifestyle of living under the law, not living a freeing lifestyle of a life of grace. This type of living, under the law is ourselves trying to earn God's grace by our good works of toeing the line of the law. We cannot earn what has been freely and ubundantly given to us. No matter what we do, our how hard we try, it's already there waiting for us. We just have to accept it. That's it. Just take it!

This is getting very long winded and I didn't mean for it to be. I hate typing anyways so go figure. Well I close with this. Sounds like I'm preaching. Oh man, no way. In our life group on Sunday we talked about the parrable of the Prodigal Son. What amazed me about the story which I guess I never realized is this. Yeah of course the father accepted his son and threw him the biggest party in response to his arrival, but there are two things that I really love about this. The son wrote off his father for dead before he left by asking for his share of his inheritance before it was time. He spit in his face and turned his back and split. Secondly, and this is the most amazing thing, the son did not walk up and knock on the door and announce his arrival back home. Right? It was not a suprise! The father was looking earnestly and saw him comming from far off. He never stopped looking. He never gave up, never lost hope, his heart was still always turned toward his son. That's the grace of a father. That the grace of THE Father!!! I turned my back on the my Father a couple years ago. My God was still there looking for me, waiting for me, loving me and His heart was still turned toward me. I didn't suprise him when I came home. That's Grace!!!! No Rules, just Grace.