We ridicule, we judge, we covet. We slay with our words, with our thoughts, with our actions. We hold onto attitudes of self-righteousness, injustice, and pride. We look inward instead of outward, we hoard instead of give, we curse instead of bless.
And yet, at Christmas we worship the God-Man.
The God-Man who set aside his kingly robes and came in the form of a man, not just a man…a helpless baby.
The God-Man who “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with god a thing to be grasped” (Php. 2:6).
The God-Man who came as a servant.
The God-Man who humbled himself to the point of death on the cross.
And yet…we, all too often, hold ourselves up.
We, those we have been drowned in the love of grace, forget it. Instead of being humbled that the God-Man saw us in our pitiful position, reached to save us from our own oblivious self-righteousness, we’ve become comfortable. We feel safe in our justification–and while we should, we forget grace. We forget to extend it, breathe it, live it.
Grace came down.
It came to cover our sins, our unrighteousness, our evil, our self-importance, our guilt, our pride.
Grace came to free us.
We worship this humble Grace-Giver. We sing songs of praise. We gather to celebrate his first coming and anticipate his second.
But do we forget the most central thing of all?
The gift of grace.
Do we give it? Or do we hoard it?
Do we embrace grace for ourselves, but neglect to see how the same God who showered us wants to pour grace on the sinner next to us? Do we forget that the good in us is only because of the grace of God?
Or do we presume it is some righteousness of our own?
This Christmas–this year, this life–let’s purpose to not only live in the grace God has given to us, but remember to extend grace to all we see, all we meet, all we hear.
If we keep grace to ourselves we kill it.* If we keep it to ourselves, we don’t really know it. If we keep it to ourselves, we have no clue what we’ve been saved from.
Let us follow the God-Man and live in humble estate, remembering that love covers a multitude of sins and no one is beyond the reach of grace.
(*powerful words from Serena Woods)
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