Scandalous Grace
By Tracy Smith
“And since it is
through God’s kindness, then it is not by their good works. For in that case,
God’s grace would not be what it really is - - free and undeserved.”
Romans
11:6 (NLT)
I
am a fiction reader and have favorite authors whose new releases I eagerly look
forward to. One of those authors is Dee Henderson. She had a new book released
shortly before our family had a trip planned to visit my husband’s family in
Minnesota. Six hours of reading - - a dream come true for this reader! Little
did I know that this fiction book would have a gem of a quote that would spark
my thinking for months to come. In the book, Unspoken, I found this quote, “Grace is so scandalous we can never
get beyond its reach to forgive.” [1] Wow! I had to stop
reading, write the quote down to think on later.
Scandalous
and grace - - not two words you think of as “going together.” But the more I
thought about it, the more I realized that God’s Word is full of examples of
scandalous grace.
David
(2
Samuel 11): David sent a man to his death in war so that he could have the
man’s wife. Yet because of David’s true repentance and lifelong trust in God,
he is later called a man after God’s own heart (1
Samuel 13:14).
The
Samaritan woman at the well (John 4): She was a woman and a Samaritan, so normally a
Jewish man would not have spoken to her. On top of that, she was an outcast
(she was at the well during an “off” time) because of some sad choices she had
made in life. Choices others may have seen as unforgivable. Yet,
Jesus did a scandalous thing for His day: spoke with her and then offered
her Living Water.
Saul/Paul
(Acts
9:1-31): As Saul, he thought he was doing God’s work by persecuting and
contributing to the death of Christians. Yet, after his conversion, God used
Paul mightily in the new church.
In
our world, the actions of those above would be deemed “hard to forgive” or even
“unforgivable.” But God puts no one
and no action outside of God’s
redemptive, forgiveness grace. Scandalous and amazing!
GOING DEEPER:
1. Do you ever feel like you’ve done something
hard to forgive or even unforgivable? If so, would you commit to finding more
stories of God’s scandalous grace in the Bible as encouragement?
2. Do you
know those who feel like they’ve done something unforgivable? What can you do
to encourage or remind them of God’s forgiving grace?
FURTHER READING:
[1] Henderson, Dee. Unspoken. Page 170. Bloomington, MN: Bethany House Publishers,
2013.
Along
with being a wife and mother to two boys, Tracy is an administrative assistant
at Oakwood, serves on the Women’s Ministry Special Events Team and leads a
great group of Junior High girls.
