Grace is Beautiful

Grace for Augustine, is God's freedom to act without any external necessity whatsoever- to act in love beyond human understanding or control; to give his Son freely as Mediator and Redeemer; to endure the Church with the indwelling power and guidance of the Holy Spirit; to shape the destinies of all creation and the ends of the two human societies, the "city of earth" and the "city of God"....I think this is beautiful and I'm learning so much about God's grace right now.
It all came full circle today when my sister and I were talking about this paper of religion she is going to be writing and ideas of what she could write about...she actually asked me to help! Yeah I am stoked beyond measure to be able to talk about what we think is right and wrong and whatnot..she's not a dull crayon and happens to be quite opinionated..no surprise about the opinionated part!
While we were talking this morning, I remembered that the other day I found a tract in one of her work books while I was cleaning around the house. It was a million dollar bill that had religious language..not Scripture around it and actually told you what God thought about you if you were a sinner. Can you believe it? As I read it I was baffled beyond belief...no Scripture...human words were telling me that if I was a sinner God looked at me with disgust...not love, but merely as a distasteful creation. I couldn't believe how bad the theology behind this piece of religious advertisement was...surely this wasn't the God I serve. The Jesus I serve "loved me even while I was still a sinner." "He sent His only son so that I wouldn't have to perish." That's what God thinks about me and you and every other Joe or Janice in the world. He is willing to sacrifice it all. I asked my sister if she received things like this often and she said yes and that it's usually something about "turning or burning" or "the 10 steps to take to get to God." She even told me a story about a guy that looked strange at her the entire time he was sitting in her section waiting to get his food, and she could tell he was judging her..making presumptions about her and then she had confirmation when the creep left a tract on the table. He made no effort to get to know her.
I was extremely angry about this and deeply saddened. What are these people thinking? They don't know anything about my sister. They don't know the deep questions she's had about God or what prevents her from fully giving her life over to Him. They don't know her past or where she is right now. They know nothing and that's the way they prefer it...as long as at the end of the day they can say they handed out a piece of paper. Sorry that's not going to cut it pal- try living with sinners. Try really loving them. (Now I'm not saying I have evangelism figured out but stories like those remind me of why I need God's grace, why we all do.)
I went to Joshua House tonight with a good friend from high school. Joshua House is a 20's - 30's ministry at a different church than my own, but I love it because it's alive and vibrant. I listen to their podcast sometimes and there's a great speaker that happens to be a woman, she gets thrown into the preaching rotation every now and then. Well, during meet and greet time I turn to my side and she came all the way from the back of the room to greet my friend and me. We started chatting and realized we both have a couple mutual friends on staff at IWU. Not only this, all the while she doesn't have a clue I listen to her preaching and love it, and she invites us to her small group Bible Study on Thursday nights. Alleluia! Even during school I said I wanted to join a small group this summer..one that has depth and whatnot..and here it is hand delivered. Grace? I think so.