An Appointment with Christ: A Graceful Life (Luke 6:27) Part 5

On this occasion we want to temporarily conclude since in reality this study that we have been carrying out about grace and the attitude of grace is something so profound that it could take us many more programs. In the interest of continuing with other topics, we are simply going to conclude in this message with a part of this deep study about grace and how we should be people who express God's grace with our fellow men.

We have been meditating on Chapter 6 of the gospel according to Saint Luke, especially on verses 27 onwards. We have spoken about this attitude of goodness, mercy, love, benevolence, patience, tolerance, and good disposition towards others that Christ calls us to embody, to incorporate into our lives.

The words of the Lord have sounded again and again in our ears: “... love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you.” Actually there is no deeper way to deal with this issue because the truth is that it shocks us to understand when we receive those words that resonate almost with violence to our carnal, merely human sensibility. The concept of loving our enemies is something truly scandalous. And it makes me think of something that is also scandalous in the Bible and that is the cross.

The Bible says that the cross is a scandal, it is a cause for scandal, it is a stumbling block many times for those who try to enter the Gospel. People often cannot understand that God has become a man and has allowed himself to be crucified. The Apostle Paul in one of his letters talks about how for the Jews the fact that Christ died on a cross represented something that they could not understand, because the Jews could not understand a God, a Messiah who was defeated in a sense on a cross. They expected a military Messiah, mounted on a white and spirited horse who came to free the Jewish people from the Romans who oppressed them. And the Lord came mounted on a donkey, on a humble donkey, speaking of love to his enemies. And the Jews, a proud race, who expected a liberating Messiah, could not understand this humble teacher who identified himself with the poor and the sinners and those rejected by the respectful, and the respectable of time.

Yet that was God, it was God made man, preparing to die on a cross, to die for our sins. And the Hebrews couldn't understand this, and neither could the Greeks of Paul's time. Because the Greeks loved reason, logic, and for them it represented a paradox, a contradiction that Almighty God died on a cross. How can an almighty God allow himself to be crucified by his creatures? How can a king die the vilest of offenders? The Greeks could not understand the logic of God either. That is why Paul spoke of the folly of God being wiser than the wisdom of men. That is why Paul was talking about spiritual things having to be understood spiritually because the natural, logical mind cannot understand them.

The cross is like that, brothers. The cross is scandalous. The cross offends reason, it offends the way most of us conceive human relationships should be. However, the Lord Jesus Christ asks us through this conduct of grace that we also assume the conduct of the cross, that we also put the cross on our backs and carry it as Christ carried it.

That is why the Lord Jesus Christ says: "... carry my cross every day, each one take up his cross every day and follow me." To be true servants of Christ we have to take our portion of the cross. We have to live as Christ lived. The Lord was upset. The Lord did not live for himself, the Lord lived for others.

That is terrible but that is the truth and the wonderful thing is that when we take up the cross, the cross blesses us, the cross opens doors for us and frees us in wonderful ways. The person who chooses to live according to the principle of the cross and grace becomes a spiritual giant, an extremely powerful person. Contrary to what people think that if we live according to the principle of grace we will be abused, trampled and mistreated and we will become victims continually oppressed by others who abuse our kindness and patience. Quite the contrary when we undertake this type of behavior, and we do it in the name of Jesus and in obedience to the call of Christ in his word, we become extremely powerful people.

It is important to remember that the Bible says that there is in us the same feeling that there was in Christ Jesus, who being equal to God, did not take being equal to God as something to cling to but gave himself, he gave himself up to a humble life, died a violent death and did all these things out of mercy and grace and adds that passage that for that reason God raised him from the dead and gave him a name that is above all names, so that before the In the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, of what is in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.

Let's notice that dynamic: the Lord humbled himself, the Lord gave himself, the Lord assumed a posture of grace toward humanity. In obedience, he descended and stripped himself of his glory to give himself for us. And the Bible says that precisely because He assumed that posture of grace, God raised him from the dead and gave him a name more sublime, more noble, more powerful, more royal than any other name in the universe. And before the name of Jesus, precisely because He humbled Himself, every knee of what exists on earth, under the earth and in heaven will have to bow. Why? Because the Lord humbled himself. And the dynamic of the Gospel is that he who humbles himself will be exalted, he will be lifted up. Now the one who stands up likewise and is filled with pride and tries to always preserve himself and maintain his glory and his power, will be humiliated. In the Christian life, the more you humble yourself and serve others, the more blessed you are.

That's the key to mental health. I believe it is living according to this teaching of Jesus Christ. If you want to be a truly emotionally and mentally healthy person, adopt that attitude of grace towards others to bless people, to help others, to give yourself to others, to accommodate yourself for others, to bless those who do not deserve to be blessed, to be patient with those who irritate us. If you adopt that attitude, if we adopt that attitude, we are going to discover that we are going to be happier people. The unhappiest people in the world are the most selfish people, the people who are always looking for their own advantage, the people who make life difficult for others by criticizing and judging them and demanding from them and putting them down.

Many of us believe that if we push others down we will be higher. But it is quite the opposite. When we bring down and push others down, we too are dragged down with them and lower ourselves and then we feel bad inside ourselves, we feel guilty.

I believe that many of the depressions in life, the anxieties, the low self-esteem, the sense of guilt, the negativity towards life, the fears, the phobias that characterize the modern world, come precisely because many people are not living according to this principle. Selfish people usually end up losing. By trying to hoard and have more for ourselves and living at the expense of others, what we do is that our wealth and gains become sand, become water that slips through our fingers.

Now when you decide to live in a position of love, mercy, grace towards others, to give to those who do not deserve, to those who cannot return what you gave them, to be generous with your goods, to having patience with others, you discover then that it is a wonderful principle to live by. In addition to making you like God, you take on the wonderful nature of God and you become like your heavenly Father. And then when you refer your cause to God and do not always try to defend your rights and your interests, God becomes your defender, your support, your helper. There is nothing more beautiful than living like God because then you will be like God and you will have the power of God.

Be like Christ who became poor and then God enriched him to the utmost. If you decide to live according to the principles of grace you will be a tremendously powerful and tremendously happy person.

Christ offers you today the path to happiness. Forget about being happy and simply live to make others happy and happiness will come to your hands without any effort, without having to distort or twist yourself. What a wonderful beginning! I hope it is a blessing for your life. The beginning of grace. Let's learn to live according to that principle of grace and we will be truly happy people. May God bless you and may the Christ of grace come to be your Lord, your savior. Open your heart to Him right now and tell Him: Lord, come into my life, I want to be like you, I want to live like you. I give you all my being, all my life. Receive it now and start living like the Master. May God richly bless you.