You are not in control

Grace can be defined as getting something you don’t deserve or didn’t earn. It’s a gift.

Grace is also one of the most difficult things for people to accept and actually embrace. Even Christians, who have grace as a major part of the belief system, have a ton of trouble living into what grace is and how it works. The concept of grace conflicts with so much of life. Things like contracts between people where the relationship laid out — I do this and you will do this in return. Grace is in conflict with the transactional nature of most of our lives. We pay money that we earned for things and expect to receive something of equal value. We earned it and we deserve it. And when it doesn’t go as we had hoped, we get upset and demand that the situation changed. We deserve what we are paying for after all. So much of our life is transactional. But grace is not. We don’t earn it or deserve it. We just receive it. And that’s what makes it difficult.

I think another reason people in the West have trouble with grace is because too often we seem to be most concerned with correct thinking and belief as well as who is right and who is wrong.

There are many Christians who stake salvation on correct belief about Jesus/God. If you don’t believe correctly, then you don’t get to spend eternity with God. If correct belief is necessary for salvation in any form, then aren’t be practicing idolatry. We’re making beliefs into what saves us. We are putting ourselves in the position of having to do something to receive salvation — doing a work in…