“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” - C. S. Lewis
A few weeks ago, I wrote my first blog post on my initial understanding of the Grace of God for my Soteriology class. Initially, my focus was on how grace is a reminder of the presence of God in our lives. While this statement is true, it deeply lacks the depth and breadth of what grace truly is. As the class comes to an end, I feel as though my understanding of God's Grace is still just starting.
One line that struck me from Randy Maddox's Responsible Grace was, "Our very capacity for growth in Christ-likeness (New Birth) is contingent upon God's gracious pardoning prevenience (initial justification), while the continuance of God's acceptance (final justification) becomes contingent upon our responsive growth in Christ-likeness (sanctification)" 1. Grace is more than just being pardoned and forgiven for being sinful. The process of grace starts long before our decision to accept it. Wesley’s concept of Prevenient Grace is what even allows us to experience New Birth in Him. At this point, our Spiritual journey begins. Along the way, we continue to choose the will of God for our lives, which leads us deeper into Christ-likeness, which can also be known as the process of Sanctification. As Christians, the goal is not just to be saved, but rather to reflect the One who saved us.
I think the concept that was most eye-opening for me was Wesley’s position on Responsible Grace. According to Wesley, “not only would there be no habitual sins or individual acts of willful sin in real believers following the New Birth, there would not even be sinful desires!” 2. Essentially, the grace of God is powerful enough to remove the need for sin in our lives. Everyone is faced with choices in life. It is when we make the wrong choice that we sin. However, we can still face decisions that have sin as an option and choose instead the will of God. Wesley’s clarification that sin was not the feeling of this wrong prompting, but the yielding to it. 3. This is where the process of Sanctification shines. The more we desire to be like God, the less we will make decisions out of our own sin nature.
When reflecting on these words, I'm brought back to C.S. Lewis and his image of a home renovation project. When we accept the New Birth as Wesley calls it, Christ is invited into our hearts and now dwells with us. But as He starts making Himself comfortable, there are some things that need to be cleared out so that there is room for Him. Though the process may not always be easy, allowing God to work in us and through us creates us into something more marvelous than we could ever imagine on our own. We will learn what it means to live a life fully devoted to our Creator and Sustainer. This is a life that reflects the Grace of God.
May not just my words, but my life communicate the fullness of God’s grace. Even though I am still a work in progress, God is a far better contractor than I and His blueprints are much greater than my own.
Randy L. Maddox, Responsible Grace: John Wesley’s Practical Theology (Nashville, TN: Kingswood Books, 1994). 172.
Ibid, 163.
Ibid, 164.
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