Active or Passive

When we think about grace, do we think of it as passive or active?

Perhaps a better question is, 'is grace the permission to sin, or the power to not sin?'

I wonder if some of the problems that we see in the church, and that I see in my life (when i say 'the church', or 'we', i invariably mean 'me') is because we see grace as passive rather than active.

When grace is passive, sin loses it's seriousness. Sin becomes unfortunate, and, because sin is cheap nothing more than that. When grace is passive, sin becomes inevitable. We find no power not to sin, in fact, since grace is forgiveness, we just find permission to sin. When grace is passive, Christ's death is a nice gesture, a necessary sacrifice even, but nothing that important. Sin isn't that serious after all so surely the bloody death of the Son of God is a bit of an overreaction.

When grace is active, however, we have in full view the full colour Christ who told a man to let the dead bury their own dead. When grace is active we see why Simon left his nets and Matthew his tax booth to follow Jesus. He is irresistible, how can one not follow Him? When grace is active, grace becomes power. The power not to sin, the power to get up and work, the power to follow Jesus, not just wallow in our sins.

When grace is active, we realise that grace isn't thing separate from Christ, but grace is in fact what leads us to follow Christ. Grace gets us up on our feet along those dusty Galliean roads. Grace gives us joy, and life, because grace, as an active, vibrant living thing, gives us Christ, not just some religious abstract. True grace, Biblical grace, active grace, gives us Jesus, and Jesus gives us life itself.