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GRACE ON TRIAL - Week 3: Identity Concerns. · Your Daily Grace

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  Welcome to your daily Grace. By Timothy Wilder Grace on trial week 3 identity concerns accusation 13 isn't grace too easy? I've often noticed that when something valuable is offered freely, people become suspicious.
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  We're accustomed to earning things.
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  We work for a paycheck.
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  Students work for grades. Athletes train for victories. Promotions, achievements and recognition usually come after effort. Because of that, many of us instinctively assume that anything truly valuable must come with the price we have to pay. I can understand why some people think grace sounds too easy, because I once thought the same thing. When I first began hearing Grace Centered Teaching, something in me was drawn to it. Part of me hoped this was how faith was supposed to work.
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  Yet I fought it for quite a while. What I find interesting now is that I never walked away from the discussion.
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  I kept coming back.
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  Something deep inside me believed there might be truth here, even while my mind was raising objections.
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  I argued with pastors. I debated friends. I pushed back in my men's group. The more I heard about God's grace, the more suspicious I became.
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  It seemed too simple, too free, too dependent on what God had done. And not dependent on dependent enough on what I was doing. Looking back, I can see that my struggle wasn't with grace itself. I struggled with the idea that I wasn't contributing to what Christ had already provided. I was convinced there had to be some part of the equation that depended on me.
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  That is why Romans 4 can feel so unsettling.
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  Paul writes that to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work, believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. Romans 4, 4 and 5 NKJV Paul deliberately contrasts earning with believing. If righteousness is received as a gift, then it cannot be earned as a wage.
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  Jesus says something similar when he invites the weary to come to him. Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
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  Matthew 11:28 KJV notice the invitation. He does not offer more striving he offers rest.
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  That was difficult for me to accept.
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  Like many believers, I was comfortable working. Resting was harder. Depending entirely on Christ felt risky because it left no room for self reliance.
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  Yet Scripture keeps pointing us in that direction. Hebrews encourages believers to come boldly to the throne of grace.
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  KJV not because we have performed well enough, but because grace has already made access possible.
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  Eventually I realized that grace is not easy because sin is small or because God lowered his standards.
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  Grace seems easy because Jesus carried what we never could what looked like a weakness in the gospel was actually its strength. What I once called too easy was really the sufficiency of Christ's finished work.
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  Today, I understand why people sometimes dismiss grace as cheap grace.
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  I once shared many of those concerns, but when the truth becomes clear, the accusation begins to lose its force. Grace is not cheap, it is complete. What is harder to believe that God loves you or that he loves you without requiring you to earn it?
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