Why should the Gospel of grace be important to us?
Let’s imagine we know someone with a diseased heart and the only thing keeping them alive is the pace maker they’ve been given to buy them time until a suitable donor can be found. Now let’s pretend that you are the only suitable donor in all the world. Let’s pretend you agreed to give them your heart as an even trade, your good heart for their bad one, on one condition. They must simply receive it as a gift from you and enjoy the new life it gives them.
What would you think if after receiving it they offered you a price as if it could measured in value and questioned whether or not this new heart was not enough for them to fully live? How would it make you feel if they insisted on keeping their old pace maker in place and active just to be sure?
God went to the greatest lengths imaginable to remove the barrier between us and Himself through the work of the cross on which Jesus died. To give us a heart of flesh for a heart of stone. To usher out the Old Covenant that had served it’s purpose but was no longer needed and to usher in a New Covenant of grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
But still today there are those who want the pace maker of the Old Covenant whose power is based in the law, and they want it to dwell along side the New Covenant heart of grace they have been given in Christ.
They fail to understand how dangerous it is to put a pace maker with a good heart. It will upset the rhythm of the good heart to do so. We do not need a new heart to accent the pacemaker. We need it to replace the pacemaker altogether!
Like the diseased person in the story we come to God with our need for grace, and I have good news! God’s grace is attracted to our need. God has chosen to bring Himself glory by giving us the amazing gift of grace through Jesus Christ!
About The Author
- Tim Atchley
- Knoxville, Tennessee, United States
- I currently serve as Senior Pastor of Harvest Church in Knoxville, Tn. I was sent out from Trinity Chapel of Knoxville in 1993 accompanied by my wife Sheila our four children Sarah, Hannah, Josiah & Isaac and a handful of bold, brave and committed believers determined to plant our first church. Pioneering is hard work but well worth the journey. That is why we desire to make disciples of Christ who will, like us, also embrace the call to plant churches.
