The Bible is a collection of stories about different people beginning with Adam in the beginning and going into the New Testament with all the people who have contributed to our faith. Many of these people seem to have lived extraordinary lives. Some of them were very faithful, some were not so faithful. The tales of all those different people make up what truly is the greatest story that has ever been. The Bible is the story of God and how God relates to and interacts with humanity. In reality, the people in the Bible were really not all that extraordinary. They were, for the most part, just regular people like you and me. God used these people to tell the story that guides us even to this very day.
Usually we can we relate to one or more of the people found in the Bible. For myself, I seem to relate to the Apostle Peter. For Peter and the other disciples everything should have been quite simple. Jesus told them about the Kingdom of God. He told them about the "Good News" and about God's grace for humanity. All Peter and the other disciples had to do was follow the teachings of Jesus and do the things he commanded them to do. Peter didn't always get things right. Most of us don't either.
Peter even went so far as to deny knowing Jesus not just once, but three times. Jesus showed grace to Peter and Peter became one of the great leaders on which the Christian faith was built on.
Grace involves looking past our shortcomings and mistakes and recognizing and nurturing our potential. I got a lesson in this in seminary with a class that was a strictly pass or fail basis. That is if you failed a single assignment you did not pass the class. On the last day of class we had the final exam. I knew how many questions could be missed and still pass. When I got the exam back and started going through it I came to the second to the last page and had missed all the questions I could miss and still pass. When I turned to the last page, my heart sank. There was red ink on the last question. I missed it and had failed the entire course because of one wrong answer. The professor circled the wrong answer in red ink and wrote out to the side, "God's grace is sufficient for thee, you have passed this class."
God has shown grace to each of us. How have we shown grace to each other?
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Editor's note: Brian Timmons is the pastor of Pea Ridge and Brightwater Methodist Churches. He can be contacted at 925-0167 or by e-mail at [email protected].
Religion on 07/30/2014