Charis

R-rated Grace

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The following post is long but worth a read when you have time. It’s an allegory of Ezekiel 16 and a picture of all of us and God’s amazing grace toward us. Again, it’s All. Of. Us. (Caution: It’s R-rated, but so is Ezekiel 16, the Book of Hosea, and many other books in the Bible)

“Your father was a pimp and your mother was a prostitute. Your mom found a lucrative way to fund her drug habit by having sex with multiple men, until your father took her in (and a few others) to live under his roof. When a pimp lives with a prostitute, one thing leads to another, and that’s where you came in. With the help of some crack and a bottle of Jack, you were conceived and immediately unwanted. Too scared to have an abortion, your mother waited until you were born, then casually dumped you— her newborn daughter— in a nearby garbage can. Minutes later, a stranger walked by and heard the squalling from inside the bin. He opened the lid and found you— squirming in your blood, expelling your last breath of life. The stranger’s 911 call miraculously summoned an ambulance within minutes, and you were saved. But still unwanted.

“The stranger couldn’t bear the thought of sending you to a foster home, so he signed some papers and took you into his home. But ‘home’ is an understatement. Your new father was the CEO of a multimillion-dollar business. Your new home was a small castle, and your future life would be paradisiacal. And he was a good man too. Humble, strong, generous, and honest. Your new father possessed an unusual joy, which he never failed to shower on you. His time, his money, his affection, his attention— they were all yours. There was nothing you lacked. All the storybook tales combined could not compare to your utopian life. You were the envy of all your friends and the prized possession of a father who had it all. From his perspective, though, ‘having it all’ meant having you. You were the source of his uncanny joy.

“But something snapped when you turned sixteen. The boys at school started noticing your body and didn’t hide their stares. Stares turned to comments. Comments turned to caresses. And caresses opened the floodgates of a different kind of love — one that was both exhilarating and empty, but too addicting to resist. So at the age of sixteen, you moved out of your father’s house, leaving him in pools of tears. You didn’t hide the fact that you were happily leaving him in order to fornicate with your new boyfriend. The more he wept, the more you laughed, as you skidded off in your boyfriend’s Camaro.

“Your adolescent love affair was only the beginning. Before long, your boyfriend’s buddies took a liking to you, and the flirtatious cycle was revisited. Soon, mere sex with your boyfriend became boring, so his friends were added to the mix. But even orgies became dull over time, and drugs, alcohol, and other men — older and creepier — joined in the hellish dance. Your dream of freedom and love had turned into a nightmare.

“But nothing can compare to the pain of the day when your boyfriend decided to mail a picture of you to your father’s house. Delighted to catch a glimpse of his princess, your father laid his eyes upon a sullied whore. Your once silky hair was frayed and knotted. Your eyes — the windows to your soul — were dark and sunken. Devoid of life. And the bruises on your face revealed that your boyfriend’s love had run dry. Daddy’s baby girl was the not-so-prized possession of half a dozen drug-infused teenagers. And there was nothing he could do.

“Sex, drugs, and imaginative acts of depravity piled up as you lived the next two years satisfying your misguided lust for life on nameless boys who used and abused you. Yet you still used them to satisfy your craving to be loved. You gave one boy the car Daddy bought you on your sweet sixteen. Your boyfriend’s other girlfriend took the dress your father made. And you sold the necklace that belonged to your grandmother to buy heroin for another man. Yet the beatings continued. Soon your bank account ran out, and you took to the streets to sell your body in order to keep a steady flow of heroin pumping through your veins.

“And heaven began to rumble with furious excitement.

“Now, you’re sitting in your room. Your ‘friends’ are gone and you are all alone. Coming down off a high, you begin to feel depressed and lonely; your humanity is slipping away. So you head for another hit to numb the pain. Just then, someone kicks open the door and a burst of fear squeezes your heart. The bruises on your body are tender reminders that your new home is never safe. Kicked-in doors are a regular occurrence, and they lead only to pain. Or sex. Both, actually. The fear runs deep. Maybe it’s the suddenness of the blast. Or maybe you just need to feed your starving addiction.

“Your pale stare quickly changes as you see the man standing at the threshold. It’s your father. Your fear intensifies. You recall the day you sped away from his house laughing as he stood on his lawn weeping. How did he find you? Why has he come? Is he, too, going to beat you after all you’ve done? His tears speak otherwise. His face glistens with joy. His hands tremble. You can hear his heart thump through his chest. Tears cascade down his cheeks, but now they look different. These are tears of adoration and triumph. And they are flowing because your daddy has found his baby girl. The one who found you wailing in a dumpster has once again taken the initiative to redeem you and enjoy you again.

“Confused, enthralled, terrified, overjoyed — you can’t move. But your father can. He races across the room to swallow you with an embrace — the first nonsexual touch you have felt in years. A touch that radiates more love than all your sexual encounters put together. You finally feel safe. Loved. Forgiven instantly, as your dad gathers your face in his hands and declares:

” ‘I’ll restore the relationship we had when you were young, only this time it will be better. It will last forever, and nothing will lure you away from me again. You’ll remember your past life and face the shame of it, but when I shower you with the good life you had as before, it will make your shame fade from your memory. Don’t try to fix it. I’ll fix it for you. I’ll make everything right after all you’ve done, and it will leave you speechless.’ (Ezek. 16:60–63, modified from MSG )

Grace. This stuff never old.”

(From Charis: God’s Scandalous Grace For Us by Preston Sprinkle)

Scandalous

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I’ve often thought, “What is it like to be ‘a man after God’s own heart’, as King David was called by God? What qualities do you have to possess? Why was David called that by God?” (See 1 Samuel 13)

I ask those questions because, frankly, I want the same God-moniker. I want God to say that about me as well. But what’s it gonna take?

There are a number of wonderful qualities and characteristics about David, both before and after he became king of Israel: He is humble, brave, loyal, and zealous. He is an unrestrained worshipper of Elohim Yahweh, our transcendent, yet intimate God of the Universe. David is self-effacing, courageous, faithful, and faith-filled. He has an unrelenting passion to see God’s great name upheld at all costs.

And he is addicted to sin.

Wait. What?!?

Yep, just like you and me, David is addicted to sin. As Preston Sprinkle puts it in Charis: God’s Scandalous Grace For Us, “Within seconds, the man after God’s own heart turns into a man after the woman next door.” He, literally, can’t help himself. Like you and me, he heads down the slippery slope. (See 2 Samuel 11)

And yet, God declares him to be a man after His own heart BEFORE this scandalous episode (which continues by having her husband killed in war on Israel’s front lines). How could God make such a mistake!?! Or was David STILL a man after God’s own heart?

David was, throughout his life — through the victories and defeats… through the good, bad, AND ugly — desperate for God. He was desperate for God’s presence and power to show through his life. He was desperate for God to produce that humility, bravery, loyalty, and zeal in him. He was desperate for God to be preeminent in his life. He desperately wanted God to take center-stage, to be renowned, to be known in “all the earth.” (1 Samuel 17:45-47)

And God accomplishes all of this throughout David’s life, including this heinous episode of sin, adultery, murder, and deception. God didn’t turn His head during this time in David’s life, thinking, “He IS a man after my own heart… well… um… except for this time.”

No, God shows his unrelenting, scandalous grace to King David and to the rest of the world for the ages to come. It’s a grace shown in the bloodline of the Savior. Deceivers. Liars. Murderers. Whores. Prostitutes. Adulterers. These are the kind of descendents we would hide away! But in order to show to “all the earth” the grace and mercy of Jesus, God uses these ragamuffins to bring Good News time and time again, throughout the Old Testament, and ultimately, in the culmination of this checkered ancestry: Jesus the Christ.

As Sprinkle puts it:

“This is why your divorce, your addiction, your enslavement to porn, or years of sticking your finger down your throat to match up to some arbitrary standard of beauty can all be woven into the fabric of God’s plan of redemption. God doesn’t cause sin. He mourns it. He despises it. But through His gracious power, He’s able to use it. No one and no sin can outrun God’s grace. Charis (grace) has no leash.”

If you are continually desperate for Jesus and His grace, then you no longer have the label of adulterer, harlot, convict, failure, loser, or even murderer. You are a man or woman after God’s own heart.

And He is after yours.

The Only Hope…

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While reading my Bible and Charis: God’s Scandalous Grace for Us by Preston Sprinkle, I was thinking, and actually became overwhelmed. I am distraught and dismayed because I am becoming more and more aware of how sinful I really am. Seriously. I am SO selfish. I don’t naturally think of others first. I think about what I have to do. I think about my agenda first.

I am depraved. My mind wanders. I have trouble “setting my heart on things above”, as Colossians 3:1 says I should. My heart constantly wanders off course, settling on earthly, temporary things.

I find this somewhat astounding because I purposely try to surround myself with the things of God. I wake up each day and think about God. I ponder and study His Word. I memorize Scripture from time to time. I journal occasionally. I listen to Christian music (for the most part). And, of course, I faithfully go to church.

My little Christian checklist doesn’t seem to work.

I even work for a Christian non-profit organization and am surrounded by wonderful, godly people, also passionate for the things of God. We, along with the Body of Christ, serve the needy and as needs are met, God transforms lives. I witness that first-hand.

And yet, here I am, amazed at my depravity.

This is not false humility. I genuinely echo Isaiah in the temple of God, “Woe to me! For I am a man of unclean lips!” (See Isaiah 6:5) And like the apostle Paul, I cry out:

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? (Romans 7:24)

If I had to venture a guess, I’d say you’re not much different.

Thankfully, this question doesn’t have to hang in the air hopelessly, because Paul answers it immediately:

Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! (v.25a)

Do you hear the relief in those words? Do you see the exclamation point at the end of the sentence!?! It’s also Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians, Chapter 12 that give me more hope when he, with the Lord’s help, gets a revelation (the lightbulb comes on) about his “thorn in the flesh”.

Many scholars have spent considerable time theorizing on Paul’s thorn and what it might have been. Some have even supposed that it was his poor eyesight or that he was somewhat meek in stature. Somehow, I don’t think that was his “thorn.” Paul was possibly the most mature Christ-follower this planet has ever seen, so I don’t think he would have referred to a God-given malady, like poor eyesight, as “a messenger of Satan.” (2 Cor 12:7)

Although we’ll never know this side of heaven, I believe Paul’s struggle was more of his “inner life.” He, like all of us, struggled. He was faced with his sinfulness, but most of all, with his weakness. But because he knew he couldn’t handle “it” alone — whatever “it” was — he knew it was an opportunity for Jesus to shine and show Himself.

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. (2 Corinthians 12:9b)

For me, that gives me hope.

It’s not about who I am nor what I am becoming.

It’s about who Jesus is and who (or what) He became for me and you.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1)

And finally:

That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10)