An Appointment with Christ: A Graceful Life (Luke 6:27) Part 2

We are here on this day because we want to share with you the beautiful word of God and in our previous meditation we started a study about the life of grace, the attitude of grace and that is what we want to explore in these meditations, and we are using as a basis the passage found in the Gospel according to Saint Luke, Chapter 6 beginning with verse 27. This passage has been called the golden rule where the Lord tells us to do to others what we want others to do to us. That is the well-known golden rule. We are also told in this passage about love towards enemies.

Luke 6, 27 says: “....but I say to you who hear: love your enemies, do good to those who hate them, bless those who hate you. curse and pray for those who mistreat you."

Therein lies the essence of this attitude of grace that characterized and characterizes the life of Jesus Christ and that constitutes a call to us, those of us who identify with Jesus to live in a similar way to how He lived. We cannot consider ourselves disciples of Jesus Christ if we do not adopt this behavior, this lifestyle.

In fact, later in Chapter 6 of Luke, verse 40, the Lord Jesus Christ says: "... the disciple is not superior to his teacher but everyone who is perfected will be like his teacher." What does the Lord Jesus Christ mean with these words? Indeed, if we want to be disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, we cannot pretend to live in a different way from how our teacher lived. We have to be like Him and live as He lives.

In our last message we made it clear that this is the way God behaves, God loves his enemies, God does good to those who hate him, God blesses those who curse him and God certainly does good works towards those who slander him Because there are many people who slander God, speak ill of God, blame him for things that God is simply not to blame for. Men many times make terrible and disobedient and sinful decisions and when they reap the negative consequences of their actions then they blame God, and slander God. And yet God still extends his hand of mercy and patiently deals with us. If we want to be like Christ, then we have to adopt this attitude of grace towards others.

Let me take a moment more to define what I mean by this attitude of grace. The word grace is a very deep word found in Scripture. And grace means when we give something away, when we give something to someone that that person does not deserve, when we use mercy with someone instead of using the whip, or the law, or the accusation or the judgment. For me, an attitude of grace is one that predisposes us to treat others with a benevolent attitude, a generous way, a kind way. The attitude of grace is one that forgives the offender. It is that attitude that assumes good in others instead of assuming evil and bad disposition.

The attitude of grace I sometimes compare to the attitude of a grandfather towards his grandchildren. It is a merciful, benevolent, tolerant, peaceful attitude that, out of such deep love that one has, forgives, bears and tolerates and is patient with others. That is the attitude of grace. It's an attitude that doesn't give people what they deserve on bad terms, and gives people what they don't deserve on good terms. God is a God of grace.

The Bible says that God could have destroyed us, could have destroyed the human race for their sin. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death, and in his commandments the Lord clearly said that the soul that sins will die. All of us were mired in sin, alienated from God, without mercy, without love, destroying and exploiting each other. But the Bible says that when man was plunged, immersed in sin, then God sent his son Jesus Christ to assume the form of man, live a life of suffering and suffering and finally die on a cross, undeservedly and through his death give us peace and reconciliation with God. God gave us the reward of salvation when we weren't even looking for it. We were not able to even conceive of the desire to serve God and to seek God and to repent. Yet Christ died for us. God by his grace gave us something that we did not deserve, that is, salvation. And he did not give us something that we deserved, that is, death and damnation. Those are grace.

God's grace leads him to be tolerant with us, to forgive us our sins over and over again when we confess and repent of it. God's grace leads him to be patient with us and to take a long-term view instead of immediately condemning us that we sin because God looks at what we are going to become and God patiently takes us through a process of regeneration and sanctification. and improvement and while that time comes to be better, God is patient with us. God's grace leads him to see the good that is in us, not just the bad. The grace of God leads him to know that, as the Bible says, we are dust. The psalmist says in psalm 103, "... because he knows our condition, he remembers that we are dust." That is God's grace to us and we are supposed to extend that same kind of grace to the people around us, our friends, our enemies, family members, spouses, children, colleagues at work, people in the church, those who do us wrong, those who treat us badly, those who have a bad disposition towards us, those who speak ill of us, those who exploit us. We must love as God loves. We must extend the same grace, the same mercy that God had with us to those who treat us in an inadequate way.

I call the first type of grace, that is, God's grace towards men, vertical grace, from top to bottom. The grace that we are supposed to extend to our neighbor, I call horizontal grace, from side to side.

You will not be able to receive the full measure of God's grace until you extend grace to those around you. There is an intimate relationship between these two types of grace. If you want to be a recipient of grace, you have to give grace, because God already gave grace to you first. That is very clear, the Lord says: if you do not forgive those who offend you for their faults, God will not forgive your faults. That is, there is a relationship. When we pray the Our Father we say "...and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." In other words, there is an intimate connection between God's grace towards us and the grace that we are supposed to have towards others.

And that is the call of the Bible. That is the mystery of this passage that in a sense God tells us: Children, just as I behave, so you also have to behave. I give grace, I give, I am generous, I give myself and I give myself continuously without even expecting a reward, and if you want to be truly my children, then you must demonstrate the works and nature of your father.

If you want to be a follower of Jesus, if you want to be truly like God, if you want to be a child of God, express the nature of God, then ask God to make you a man, a woman of grace . Ask God that the attitude of grace becomes a characteristic, definitive part of your life.

Surrender your life to Jesus. Surrender your character, your temperament and your way of acting and thinking to the holy spirit of God. As you enter into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, ask Christ: Lord, come into my life. Take control of my mind and my thoughts and help me to love as you love and to be a man or woman of grace. God bless you.