Understanding Grace in the Context of My Forfeit Life

“For acquired knowledge cannot be divorced from the existence in which it is acquired. The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ. Such a man knows that the call to discipleship is a gift of grace, and that the call is inseparable from the grace. But those who try to use this grace as a dispensation from following Christ are simply deceiving themselves....This cheap grace has been no less than disastrous to our own spiritual lives. Instead of opening up the way to Christ it has closed it. Instead of calling us to follow Christ, it has hardened us in our disobedience. Perhaps we had once heard the gracious call to follow Him, and had at its command even taken the first few steps along to path of discipleship in the discipline of obedience, only to find ourselves confronted by the word of cheap grace. Was that not merciless and hard? The only effect that such a word could have on us would be to bar our way to progress, and seduce us to the mediocre level of the world, quenching the joy of discipleship by telling us that we were following a way of our own choosing , that we were spending our strength and disciplining ourselves in vain - all of which was not merely useless, but extremely dangerous. After all, we were told, our salvation had been accomplished by the grace of God." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The Lord is doing a great deal in my life at present to call me to a discipleship more deep and penetrating than I have ever before know. My heart is perturbed and distraught over my own human inadequacy. I praise God that He his grace is sufficient. For I, in my own heart would be sore and hard pressed to fill the infinite chasm of lack which begs attention insofar as my ability to live a holy life. Indeed, I find myself again perplexed at the magnitude of the glory of God and my own humanity in all its brokenness.
Were I to even try to describe the weight I feel in the presence of the Lord, my tongue would be doomed to fail. But suffice it to say, that there is a desperation in me to see Him. I love God. The King of Kings is on the move in my life. My heart trembles and quakes at the thought of being before Him, the knowledge of His eyes upon me. Yet, in my trembling, I yearn to be touched by the one who heals every sickness.

I'm reminded of C.S. Lewis' "The Chronicles of Narnia," when the beavers relate to the children (who have stumbled into a new world, one of tremendous significance and reality) the prophecy of what transpires when the king comes.....

"Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again."

My heart is beginning to grasp grace. I am finding life and purpose anew with every step I take again to lay before the Lord my whole being. Could this be what it means to be a disciple? Yes, I think it could. This may be elementary thought to someone who knows the basic principles of what it means to be a Christian. But my heart is being revived! These things which I have known my whole life are actually laying hold of my heart in a new way. I have been asking the Lord to take it deeper in me. He has. I am looking forward, with prayer and expectation, to the miracles the Lord desires in the lives around me. In the past I have feared man and what he would think about me and my weakness if I prayed for healing and nothing happened. But the Lord has done away with the fear of man in me. Because I am a surrendered life, having been crucified with Christ, I have a place in the family of God by the grace of God. In this, I am both confident and humbled. For I have assurance of the fact that I am His daughter. And I possess the knowledge that i is not of my own merit. And this, my friends, is the beginning if the understanding of grace in the context of my forfeit life. Grace is costly.