I like simple stuff. Plain potato chips. Vanilla Ice Cream. Steak and potatoes. I am glad God is not like me. God is multi-talented. Multi-faceted. Multi-multied. And I think he enjoys revealing himself in various ways.
Because Grace is and expression of who he is, Grace is also multi-faceted. We normally think of grace in relation to our eternal salvation. However, there are many other ways God shows us favor.
If you have not read the story of Esther you should. If you think you know the story, you should read it again. I bet you will find something new. It's an amazing story. Full of conspiracy, spies, ancient enemies, beautiful women, and not so amazing men. Most of the men are flawed in the story. We see men being lead astray by others who want to make them happy. As a side note: don't surround yourself with people whose goal is to make you happy. These types of people will rarely offer good advice and will consistently mask your weaknesses until it's too late. Surround yourself with people who tell you the truth. The hard truth. And they need to be people who will stick around to help you navigate the chaos that the truth can wreck on your world.
The story of Esther is in many ways a story of grace. Not conventional grace maybe. But God's favor is theme that keeps the story moving. And the central reason the story has a happy ending.
God's grace not only saves, it empowers us. As human beings we have a choice as to how to live our lives. We can be safe. We can be dangerous. We can be safe, except when it's dangerous to be safe or we can be dangerous when it's safe to be dangerous. We have choices. If we choose to make decisions based on our ability to achieve, then any success we have as a result will serve to convince us that we can trust ourselves. This is the formula that most of the world embraces. We feel pretty good when our ability leads to success. The feeling is not so good when it leads to failure. And since we all fail at something this way of walking through life eventually leaves us with a strange mix of power and frailty. We often highlight our power and try to hide our frailty, which actually just makes us weaker and leads to more confusion.
We do have another choice, though. We can choose to act beyond our own capacity. This is called faith. Faith is choosing an action that we know will lead us to a position where we can't control the outcome. When we choose to act in faith beyond our capacity to control the outcome, for the glory of God and the advancement of His Kingdom, we get to experience God's grace. Not God saving us from sin, but God coming through for us. Coming through with us. God empowering us to make a difference that is beyond our capacity to make.
This is the story of Esther.
There are two types of grace on display in the story of Esther, and in our own lives. First we have grace that goes ahead of us. This is the type of grace that saves us from our sins. Jesus has already died. He has already paid the price and set everything up for us to be reunited with God the Father. We simply accept that grace. Esther walked into God's grace that was laid out before her. She was born beautiful, by God's grace. She was orphaned but by God's grace had an influential uncle, Mordecai, that took her in. She was chosen to go to the palace of the King of Persia to be considered to replace the disposed Queen Vashti. She was given favor there by the man in charge of the harem. She was chosen by the King to become the queen. It's a fairy tale type story if we stop right there. Orphaned young girl becomes queen of a vast empire. Too many times we stop there. We walk into the grace that has gone ahead of us, and we get comfortable and we stop. We completely miss the second type of grace that God has for us. But not Esther. She experienced more grace because she was willing to live beyond her capacity.
Despite what her uncle Mordecai said, there is a good chance that Esther could have survived the destruction of the Jewish people. No one even knew she was of Israelite descent. However, I believe that Esther knew that Mordecai was right when he told her that maybe God has put you in this royal position for just this time. You may not be royal. But you have a position. You have influence. Whether that influence is over one person or many. We must ask ourselves are we willing to use our influence, our position, our privilege to make a difference in the lives around us? Esther could have easily sat back and not gotten involved while the Kings right hand man, Haman, destroyed her people. But she didn't. She first tells Mordecai that she can't go see the King because it's against the law. She might die. But she eventually agrees to go before the King uninvited saying "If i die, I die". She knows that as she steps into the King's inner court, she is surrendering control. She is putting herself in a position where God must deliver her or she will die. And she experiences grace. God grants her favor in that moment. Her life is spared and now, having started down this path she continues pressing the issue over the next couple of days until her people have been saved. She acted well beyond her capacity. And her steps of faith were rewarded by God as he empowered her faith to change the fate of her people.
When we act based on our own ability, we learn to trust ourselves. But when we act outside of our own capacity in faith, for the glory of God, something entirely different happens. We learn to trust God. We learn to believe that God honors crazy steps of faith. We learn to expect God to come through for us. This doesn't mean we never experience pain or loss. It simply means that we are willing to experience pain and loss because we believe that God is powerful enough to redeem our suffering for His good plans. For me at this stage of life, grace and salvation and purpose are tightly bound together. The way God continuously allows me to have purpose and impact in this life can't be separated from God's grace in salvation. They are all connected.
We may tell ourselves that we would never deny Christ. That if push came to shove, we would never cross that line. But do we let ourselves be quieted for Christ. We don't deny him but we don't speak up either. After all, Jesus wants us to get that promotion right? Jesus doesn't want people to think of us as wacko's. So we don't deny Him. We just retreat to a safe place somewhere between belief and action. Of course we promise ourselves that if anyone every breaks into our cocoon of safety we be sure and stand up for Jesus then. The reality is that a life lived that way is completely useless to God. It makes no impact except to reinforce the idea that Christians are really weak and hypocritical. This happens because we want to walk into grace, but we are not willing to experience the grace that is only found when we are willing to faithfully live beyond our capacity.
You have been graced by God. You have talent, value, ability, and influence. Are you willing to push those things to the middle of the table in a real life game of poker, and risk what the world will tell you is most important? Are you willing to live beyond your capacity because you believe that God will grant you favor and bring power into your faith? That is empowering grace. And that is what God wants all of us to experience.
In 2 Timothy 4:6 the apostle Paul says that he is being poured out like a drink offering. I used to think that sounded awful. But now I think it is beautiful. What more could we ask for our life than for it to be used completely up in an offering to God? I hope that you can experience having your life used by God. Not blessed. Used. I hope you can experience empowering grace like Esther did.
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