How Sweet The Sound...

I know that you have read these concluding pages, but I would like to repeat what Andy writes in the very front of this chapter.

I think it definitely goes against the grain of what you and I were raised to believe as well as what we honestly think as we live our life.

All of us at one time or another have struggled with whether we have lived a life that is good enough to please God. Along with that concern of pleasing God comes the thought, what if it's not enough.

Questions like "will I miss heaven?" and "am I saved?" are in abundance among believers, especially during our prodigal stints. Times when attitude, action or language fails our own standards, let alone God's, and we wonder, "will God forgive me, again?"

Let me remind you.... HE WILL.

Read again the words from the closing pages of the book. This last section entitled "How Sweet The Sound"...

"While I've been writing this book, there has been a little voice in the back of my brain whispering, but what about…

What about obedience?

What about disobedience? What about repeated misbehavior?

What about bad habits?

What about justice?

What about repentance?

So it was tempting to conclude with a chapter on the benefits of obedience and the consequences of sin. After all, we can't have people running around taking advantage of God's grace.

But I chose to ignore that little voice because all the what about's are irrelevant to a discussion of grace. There is no connection at all. To add that chapter to a book on grace would be to make this a book about something else. I'm not sure there is a word in the English vocabulary for what it would be. Perhaps almost grace. But almost grace is like almost true. If something is almost true, it isn't.

It's this tension that makes grace so slippery. Perhaps it's this tension that has driven churches and Christians through the centuries to add to and subtract from grace. There's something and most of us that screams, it can't be that easy! But as much as we want to qualify grace, it can't be qualified. It's frustrating, I know. The tension between law and grace, justice and grace, fairness and grace was a big part of the first centuries struggle with the message of Jesus. But clearly he was at peace. So much so that he could say to a woman caught in adultery, I do not condemn you… From now on sin no more John chapter 8 verse 11 NASB. Translated: you're a sinner. But I don't condemn you; I'm not going to give you what you deserve. I am extending to you exactly what you don't deserve: grace. Jesus didn't try to balance grace and truth he gave her a full dose of both.

This is so important. If you don't get this, you will default to a diluted form of grace that is no grace at all."

What are your thoughts about Andy's statement concerning grace in these last few pages?

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