Uncomfortable Grace
This past week I’ve been reminded of this quote from Paul Tripp. In a message he gave at Kingsway Community Church back in 2006, he said the following:
”In the moments often where we are crying for the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we’re getting it, but it’s the uncomfortable grace of refinement. You want the grace of relief, because you want your life to be comfortable but you do not need right now the grace of relief; you need the grace of refinement. Relief will come; praise God for that but right now in the agenda is refinement. And that is why in the here-and-now very often God’s grace comes to us in uncomfortable forms.”
Sometimes I’m so tempted, when I ask for God’s grace, to think that everything should be going smoothly and comfortably. Well, I’ve been reminded that grace and comfort are not always the same thing.
Why is it that grace isn’t always comfortable? Isn’t that what grace is? Well, maybe the reason for grace isn’t our comfort, but instead God’s glory. Ever thought of that? I was freshly challenged as I then read this scripture.
1 Peter 1: 6-7
In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
It’s so hard to see these “sufferings” and “trials” as God’s grace… Then I think of what Christ did on the cross for my sins. I won’t believe for a second that dying on a cross was comfortable. Yet, because Christ died on the cross for my sins and called me to himself I am being made into his image, more and more each day—and sometimes that requires the uncomfortable grace of refinement. So may we glory in the cross even in the moments where we don’t feel God’s grace the way we would like to; for we know his grace is with us 24/7.
This is cool, because I was just reading a book that says that we ONLY praise God when we are pleased by Him. It literally makes the claim that our praise is ONLY an overflow of the pleasure we find in God, and then it turns and actually calls people who praise God when they aren’t happy with His Will, hypocrites. As you can tell, this made me really angry. God has been teaching me to praise and glorify Him when I am not at all happy with His design for my life and when I don’t feel satisfied by what He’s given me. After I choose to praise Him, then comes the Joy and Comfort in Him because praising Him even when I’m not joyous changes my heart and makes it joyous in the right things. People do think, most of the time, that Grace is supposed to be comfort that helps us continue as we are — in our sin. But Jesus died and suffered to bring us the very Grace of redeeming us and transforming us in God’s Image. How dare we cheapen what cost Him so much? How dare we say that He died so that we could continue to more comfortably mock Him and crucify Him by our sins — to continue as we are? Lately, God has taught me that it is His Grace that I lose things because losing things causes me to let go of this world and seek all I need in Him — like when I am persecuted and I don’t feel safe or at peace, then it causes me to let go of the safety and security and peace that this world offers and to turn and find safety and peace and security in Him — the kind that can never be stolen or shaken or destroyed. That is Grace to remove from me what I think is good so that I will find the truly Good in Him alone that is everlasting.
Good post!
And this is precisely the lesson of Job. Satan accused Job of blessing God only because God had hemmed him in, or provided a hedge of protection around him. Such would have been a false faith, a fair-weather friend-ness on Job’s part. God proved (to His own glory) that such was not the case, and that Job praised God for giving and for taking away.
Riëtte,
I agree that we, especially here in the United States, have formed a view of God that is more like a celestial Santa than the one, true sovereign God. I found your post doing a search on the term “refining grace” as Paul Tripp was just at our fellowship this last weekend. Great Post and you girls keep glorifying Him. As I am sure you know, He alone is worthy!