Entry #13

This series was originally published on my socials in 2021. My beliefs and opinions have changed in some ways since then, but these words are still meaningful and relevant to who I am and what I believe today.

As long as I can remember I’ve heard Grace and Truth taught almost as competing forces.

The ol’ pendulum.

Grace on one side, Truth on the other.

The trick is to find the sweet spot—the middle ground of tension between the two.

Don’t lean so heavily on Grace that you water down Truth. But also, don’t lean so heavily on Truth that you neglect Grace. To imply that everyone has their own Truth is blasphemy and basically claiming Relativism (that Truth is relative) …. Yikes. Don’t be that guy. That guy is not "in the Word" but "of the world."

Guys, I’m just not so sure about the pendulum.

Doesn't it cheapen grace? Cheapen Christ's death?

Doesn't it give WAY too much power to me? To my brain, my understanding, my interpretations.

Every time I hear someone say, “There’s ONE truth,” I think about the gazillion denominations we have (approximately), many of whom claim to have cornered the market on “Truth” all while reading the same Bible.

And within those denominations we have leaders who would disagree on big topics, all while reading from the same Bible.

I think about the thousands of scholars and theologians and apologists and literal geniuses who have studied the same Bible and come to different conclusions on big topics.

And of course there are all the many times throughout history we've collectively read the same Bible and used its "Truth" to defend horribly inhumane things.

If this ONE TRUTH was so clear, wouldn't God have made it a lot easier for us to find it? I can't imagine that his design was to make it so that only the smartest and best theologians win. That's the exact opposite of his character.

So when Jesus says the most famous line in the Bible, “For God so loved the world he gave his only son that whoever BELIEVES IN HIM shall not perish but have eternal life,” can I not just believe him?

Because the church seems to have added an asterisk to that verse.

… that whoever believes in him*

*and believes the right doctrine

*and has the appropriate Biblical Worldview

*and, except for those who ___________

*and you also need to make sure you ________

*and definitely don’t __________

THEN, you can have eternal life. Sorry for insinuating it only had to do with believing… our bad.

Assuming we are always right and everyone else is always wrong, that our understanding is perfect and our truth is infallible, is quite honestly equating ourselves with God.

He says it himself: His ways and thoughts are higher, beyond our understanding—YOU WILL NEVER KNOW IT ALL.

The good news always has been and always will be GRACE.

When I think of Grace versus Truth, instead of a pendulum, I see this:

Each of us loosely holding Truth in our hands (now bear with me while I flesh this out … I am not a relativist) that has been formed through our own interpretations of scripture, our life experiences, our traumas, our personalities, our biases, our faith.

I see the Holy Spirit working in and through us to convict and guide us as we read the Bible and engage with the world to guide and inform this Truth.

I see GRACE draping over us like an umbrella. God’s way of saying, “I want you to do your best to figure these things out so that your life will have less strife and pain, but if you don’t, I got you.”

I see the Church coming alongside each other, all loosely holding their truths, all covered under the Grace umbrella, trying to help each other in humility, service, and prayer, never assuming we've figured it all out, but saying, "This is the way I understand it—what do you think?"

And under all of it, the foundation of everything is the Love of Christ. His love informs our Truth. His love pours through our Grace.

In this scenario, we don’t have to choose one or the other. We don’t have to feel guilty in our grace-lavishing, for he lavished it on us first. ON THE CROSS he dispensed it wildly. First to the thief hanging next to him and then to his murderers: “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.”

They ALL deserved death. They ALL deserved unforgiveness. Look at what they did. They killed the Messiah.

But Jesus said, NOPE. Forgive them. They don’t get it. They don't know everything.

And we don’t know either.

But thank the Good Lord. His grace is sufficient.

*Please enjoy my beautiful stick figure artwork... I'm more of a doodler than an artist.