Rediscover the Bible for Life
“Reboot to Grace”
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been working at my computer when all of a sudden everything freezes up. I try just about everything to get it working again, from waiting hours while it tries to figure itself out, to yelling and threatening it within an inch of its technical life.
Finally I break down and call a tech savvy friend or tech support and the first thing they tell me, “Have you tried restarting your computer?” Now why didn’t I think of that?
And everyone has experienced the same thing. We’ve all had issues with our computers and having to call the tech support hotline only to have them tell us, “Have you tried restarting your computer?”
I think there is an adage in the computer industry saying, “When in doubt, reboot.” When nothing else seems to be working, reboot. When you can’t seem to identify the problem, reboot.
Basically to reboot a computer you turn it off and then turn it on again. This seems to have miraculous healing powers for the computer. It shuts down programs or functions that may be running in the background that’s slowing the computer down. It also allows the computer’s automatic defense systems to identify and deal with unwanted viruses and malware.
This is what grace does for our lives. Grace reboots our lives. Grace has miraculous healing power when combined with the operating system of God’s word. It allows us to shut down hurtful programming that is sapping our energy from living the life God has designed; hurtful programming like guilt, shame, fear, legalism, and the ever-malicious virus of sin.
Grace exposes the lies with the truth of God’s word and brings freedom. It takes all the strategies the world tells us will work and prioritizes them based upon the operating system of God’s word.
Christianity is a religion of grace. Unfortunately grace is not well understood and really not believed. We use the word a great deal but rarely think about what it means.
Grace is hard to accept, hard to believe, and hard to receive. Part of our problem is in the nature of grace. Grace shocks us in what it offers. It’s truly not of this world. It frightens us with what it does for sinners.
Grace teaches us that God does for others what we would never do for them. We would save the not so bad, but God starts with lowest and then works down from there. Grace is a gift that costs everything to the giver and nothing to the receiver. It’s given to those who don’t deserve it, barely recognize it, and hardly appreciate it. That’s why God alone gets the glory in our salvation. Jesus did all the work when he died on the cross.
In the end grace means that no one is too bad to be saved. Are there things in your background that you would be ashamed to talk about in public? Fear not. God knows all about it, and His grace is greater than your sin. So reboot your life to God’s grace.
