Grace, mercy and peace

I ran into a fellow believer the other day whom I hadn’t spoken to in a while. The last time we talked, his life was in shambles — broken marriage, broken career, declining health. 

The man was a believer and a follower of Jesus; he just wasn’t growing or addressing some of the obvious issues in his life, and it was costing him.

Somewhere along the way, he began to truly believe that his best days were behind him and there was simply nothing to be done about that. Honestly, many in the Body of Christ would have considered his situation beyond repair. Seeing him again, I was blown away. He was almost unrecognizable! The Lord had done a deep, redemptive work in his life.

And I was convicted.

I realized that at some point in my knowing of this person, I had actually stopped extending grace to him. I no longer believed his situation could truly be redeemed.

Why? Because he was already a believer.

He had heard the Gospel and believed in Jesus. He had been in church for years and knew his Bible well. And for some reason, I had subconsciously disqualified him from grace because of it. Isn’t it strange how the lost can come to church and be found by Jesus — only to be deemed a “lost cause” once again by their now fellow believers?

We get people in the door, and we have an unspoken expectation and timeline for their transformation. And when they don’t meet that expectation or timeline, we quietly write them off. It’s almost as if we say, “Come to church…” (and under our breath) “the grace ends at the door.” The response of the church over the past several years to the public moral and ethical failures of some of their own has revealed this very thing.

I am convinced that many in the church only believe in the power of redemption as it pertains to unbelievers and only extend grace to those who remain outside of our sanctuary walls. We claim to have Jesus’ heart for the broken, yet we’re shocked to find the broken in our midst. And when the broken dare to continue to exist as broken individuals, we cast our judgment. One pastor said it this way: “The Church is often the only army that shoots its wounded.” Somewhere along the way, we have lost confidence in the ongoing redemptive power of God in the lives of believers.

The Apostle Paul wrote many letters to his coworkers in the faith. Like all his letters, he greeted them by stating, “Grace and peace be to you all.” But in the pastoral letters to Timothy and Titus, he adds a key word to his greeting — mercy.

Isn’t it interesting how Paul asks that mercy be shown to those whom the church would have considered older, wiser, and above broken behavior? Perhaps it’s because Paul knew those are the ones the church would be so quick to crucify.

The believer who has no grace or mercy to show is no believer at all, because he has lost touch with the very things that made it possible for him to be so.

We must remember that God’s grace, mercy, and transformative work continue beyond our moment of conversion. We are all still being transformed from one degree of glory to the next. So let us continue to extend grace, mercy, and peace — for as long as the process may continue. 

Wil Bush is the founder and director of R.I.O.T. and serves as the youth pastor at Harvest Valley Worship Center. Find out more at hvwc.com.