The grace of God is a concept that we often throw around in our speech. We quote John Bradford who said, “There but by the grace of God go I” when we see less fortunate people and some of us mistakenly say that we’ve “found grace” when we decide to ease up on our convictions.
It seems that some folks have confused God’s grace with a “license to sin” while others see it as thinly covering a few sins from the past but demanding future perfection.
Both are wrong.
One of the first things we read about God’s grace is in Proverbs 3:34 where the Bible says, “He mocks proud mockers but gives grace to the humble.”
Note that it is the humble that God gives grace. Why the humble? The humble don’t feel they’re entitled to grace and apparently God appreciates that. The problem is that I see the opposite of “the humble” in churches, pulpits and homes throughout the world.
Instead of being cautious of our actions and maybe even overly cautious, we are often the opposite. We lean toward the grace of God giving us a license to be careless. If there’s any doubt, we’ll participate in a potentially sinful action and flippantly brush aside any worry about sinning against God.
That sounds like just the opposite of “humble” if you ask me. It sounds a lot like the attitude that feels entitled to grace rather than humble in our approach to our walk with God. An entitled attitude assumes that God’s attitude toward sin is that it’s no big deal. An entitled attitude assumes that God will reward grace to cover an action instead of honoring God by being cautious to avoid potentially hurting Him by breaking one of His laws.
Doesn’t being cautious sound more like the “humble,” to whom God gives grace? If so, that is the approach we should take instead of viewing the grace of God as Him waving a hand of dismissal to His laws and the seriousness of sin.