Truly understanding and living out Grace.

In Matthew 20:1-16 Jesus explains some profound truths that examines our hearts and in depth explains God and His grace. Grace means God's unmerited favor. Do we truly understand God's grace? Because of the distortion of sinfulness man has a difficult time grasping grace and appreciating and appropriating it correctly and with the impact is deserves.

In this Parable the landowner hired workers at various times of the day and even though they were hired at different times they all were going to be paid for the whole day. In Jesus time the Jews divided the day into twelve parts. The sixth hour would be noon. The ninth hour would be 3 p.m. and the eleventh hour would 5 p.m. very close to quitting time. Each were paid the same amount and even though they all agree when they were hired on the amount, those who worked longer were upset that they were not paid more than those who worked only a small part of lesser part of the day.

Now let's get to the point and make it practical. To do that we first must explain justice. There are two kinds of justice--distributive justice and egalitarian justice. If we all got what we deserved under distributive justice we would all end up in hell. The "wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23) If we got our wages or what we deserved it would be death--spiritual death (separateness from God) and hell. We all do not deserve grace. Grace is never owed to us. All those in Christ have received grace, because Jesus Christ satisfied divine justice on the cross when He bore the penalty of justice of our sin on Himself for those who receive Him as Savior and Lord.

Does God require to give us Egalitarian grace. Do we begrudge others that seem to walk in more grace than ourselves? Is God unfair if others receive more than us? As the Word of God says, "Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?"(Romans 9:21) As mentioned grace is never owed. God is free to do what pleases Him and what honors His Holy character. God is not indebted to our rules of fairness, especially when grace is the major issue. "He didn't owe them more because grace is never owed." (When There Are No Easy Answers," p. 93, John Feinberg)

Are we jealous or envious of others. Do we falsely believe the lies of the evil one that paints God as if He is unfair. Our definition of fairness and God's are very different. Do we truly understand and apply grace? Do we walk in grace or do we walk in the flesh, judging as those of the world, without true understanding?

Let God be God. Again as God's word states, "“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:9) Let us let God be God and grace be grace and walk in the grace and let our hearts be purified of expectations and demands of grace that are very distorted and originate from the pit of hell. Truly try to understand the depths of what grace is and honor God's grace in every diminish of life.