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Only real
love can minister grace.
It is not grace if, when a boss
offends a worker, the worker is respectful in return because
he does not want to loose his job.
It is not grace if, when a husband
is unkind to his wife, the wife is nice in return because she
does not want to rock the boat.
It is not grace if, when one is
hurt by a friend's remark, he holds back resentment and anger
because he does not want to appear to be as big a jerk as his
friend is.
There is no grace without power
and there is no power without the Holy Spirit. A person can be
stimulated by stories about the giving of grace and can even
try the giving of it - but he will crash and burn, and his energy
for the whole thing will trickle away, leaving him exhausted
and worse off than when he began the whole endeavor.
All because there is no power.
When the Holy Spirit is allowed
to control, the offense is not counted as having value. The target
of the offense does not either reflect or resist reflecting the
behavior or attitude, but rather there is a love that presses
out of every pore toward the one who does not deserve it.
The one through whom the Lord is
allowed to minister in this way is behaving the way he should
behave always, when led by the Spirit of God, and the offense
is not regarded.
We didn't deserve anything, but
He sought us out, rescued us, and bought us with His own Blood!
That is grace.
We may not look down on
those who have heard over and over and still are not saved, because
it is not the repeated hearing that saves us, it is GRACE.
We didn't accept Him because we
were more sensitive or more responsive. GRACE allowed us to see
and respond.
We must take God at His
word and gaze intensely at the grace that has been shown to us,
so that we in turn can uncoil our clenched fists at those who
have offended us, and allow the One who made and loves the offender
to reveal His heart through us.
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