The Bungee Cord  6-19-18

Hello,

     Amazing grace, how sweet the sound

     That saved a wretch like me.

     I once was lost, but now am found

    Was blind, but now I see.

What is grace? Undeserved and unmerited love. That is what grace is.  A good definition, but rather bland in my mind. Not very heart gripping, if you ask me. Yet, that is exactly what grace is meant to be…to grab our hearts with life giving and life changing love.  So, with that in mind, let me offer a definition that I have come up with that I hope packs a bit more punch.

Grace is

God’s – grace begins with God, because it is God’s, and it comes from God.  Grace belongs to no one or anything else.  It’s God’s, and because it is God’s, God can do with it what he wishes.  God can use it any way God wants to.  God doesn’t have to listen to anyone else’s suggestions or expectations.  Grace is God’s.

Resolute – And when it comes to God’s use of his grace, God is resolute.  God is not wishy washy with grace.  God is not tentative with grace.  God is not cautious with grace.  God is resolute.  Single minded.  Hard headed. Stubborn. Unwavering.  Once you’ve squeezed the toothpaste out, there’s no getting it back in.  God is resolute with grace.

Amour – That is French, of course, for love.  I had to use French because I needed to use the “a”, but beyond the need to use the “a”, maybe the French word, Amour, actually better captures what grace is.  Amour…captivating love, falling head over heels love, intense love, ever on your mind love.  God’s love isn’t “strong liking”.  It isn’t vanilla in flavor.  It isn’t found on the surface of God’s heart.  God’s love is “amour”.  Grace is the kind of love that your find yourself falling into….as the French would say, “amour”.

Completely – When it comes to God’s love, like the most smitten of lovers, God holds nothing back.  God doesn’t love experimentally, seeing what might happen, and if it isn’t what he has hoped would happen, he stops the experiment.  No, God rips open his heart and lets every last bit of his love pour out. God’s love is not like a little stream that can be dammed up.  No, God’s love is like a Tsunami cascading over everything with unstoppable force. It doesn’t go around mountains. It floods over them.  It doesn’t wind around strong obstacles.  It gathers them up in its current.  God’s love is complete in its dispersal into the world, and it is complete in its expanse.

Enacted – Not extended, as if God was merely reaching out his hand.  Not enabled, as if God was providing a door to be opened.  Not extolled, as if God was simply telling about his love.  But enacted.  God is at work embracing, gathering in, holding tight.  Grace is the grip on which God has taken hold of us, a grip with which nothing can ever loosen.  God isn’t waiting for us to get the ball of his loving rolling our way.  Grace is the love of God that God, like a bowling ball, as sent careening upon us.  When Jesus died on the cross and walked out of the grave, God enacted his love in an unstoppable reaction exploding throughout the universe.

Through many dangers, toils and snares

I have already come.

‘Tis grace has brought me safe thus far

And grace will lead me home.

That’s God’s grace!  God’s Resolute Amour Completely Enacted.  

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 6-13-18

Hello,
Today's Bungee Cord is an audio/visual message, and it exceeds the bandwidth allowed for this blog...so, if you go to my Facebook page, Jerry Nuernberger, you will find it there.

Have a great week.
God's grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord 6-5-18

Hello,

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Why did the turkey cross the road?

Two questions that I asked myself on my way back home from my pastors Bible study this afternoon. Taking my normal route over the ridge from Latrobe, I came around a corner only to have to come to a complete stop, waiting for a chicken to cross the road.  Not two hundred yards later, rounding another corner, again I had to apply my breaks as a wild turkey strolled its way across the road.  I wonder how many people who have made that trek can say that they were met by two birds, a chicken and a turkey, crossing the road?

So, why did the chicken and turkey cross the road?

The answer:  I don’t know.  There may have been a specific reason for their crossings, but then again maybe there wasn’t.  In the end, the answer to the question, “why?”, is far less important than the fact that I didn’t hit either of them.

Unfortunately, often not so the case when you and I are the chicken or turkey.  As you and I cross the road, that which comes barreling around the corner sometimes does not stop in time to let us pass, but instead it hits us head on.  A tragedy. A great mistake.  A Mack truck sized sin.  A horrendous diagnosis.  Feathers fly.  Wings mangle. Road gore.

But when that happens, the Good Friday cross and the Easter morning grave have something to say, and it is not, “Why did you cross the road.”  (That is the question that the judging world asks of us, wagging its accusing finger at us, blaming us for the mess that we are in. Of course, the world may be right in its blame, but what good does that right judgement do us or the world?)  Jesus, who hung on the cross and stepped out of the tomb says something to our road killed selves that is beyond amazing.  “So, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! (2 Corinthians 5.17) You see, Jesus didn’t come to blame….he came to resurrect….to bring new life to the dead.  New life every day, and new life at the end of our days.  

Jesus takes hold of the crumpled mess that we have become and doesn’t just mend and repair it, but he makes it brand new.  That tragedy…that mistake…that sin…that diagnosis does not have the last word.  Jesus does, and with the power that spoke all of creation into being, Jesus
re-creates you and me.  Recreates you and me to cross the road, again….and again….and again.

So, fear not to cross the road…any road.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger