A Christian Worldview from Silicon Valley

Two weeks ago I said that mercy was not getting what you do deserve while grace is getting what you do not deserve. It may be that we all experience a little of both of those every day without recognizing them, but today we experienced some grace and we could see it as it happened.

As a church we have said, both with our words and our actions, that we want to grow both spiritually and numerically. Part of the action we have taken to encourage growth is a postcard-mailing campaign in which we are inviting 5,000 of our closest neighbors to join us on March 9 for a “fresh start open house.”

On the surface, a program like this seems to address only numerical growth, but look just under the surface and you’ll see a whole lot of spiritual growth taking place as well, and that is happening before even one visitor comes to our church’s home in response to our invitations.

People have been praying for the mailings and for those who will receive the cards, and those who are praying are growing. People have been volunteering time to put labels on cards, and those who are peeling and sticking are growing. People have pledged funds to help pay for this outreach, and those who are giving are growing. People have been getting the building ready for an influx of visitors, and those who have been preparing are growing. People have been planning Sunday school classes and worship services to accommodate larger numbers, and those who are planning are growing.

The first group, those who are praying (and I hope that includes you), got a good answer today and it came in the form of grace. Some of the postcards we received, you see, were printed with incorrect mailing information. We received the cards on Saturday and (to keep to our schedule) needed to mail them today. But could we? Would the post office accept them? If not, our mailing would delayed enough to disrupt the timing of the whole campaign schedule.

And so it was that we received grace today, because we were allowed to mail the cards with the error, and we give God the glory. After all, it was God’s grace that we received through the post office, and specifically through a man named Abraham.

God is good!

Lewis

This entry was posted on Monday, February 11th, 2008 at 8:16 pm and is filed under Reflections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.