'Is God's Grace Not Good Enough For You?"

 There are many folks who want to limit God’s gracious love and acceptance.  

You have heard me on this subject before. 

They want to put God in a tiny box filled with lots of expectation for  his human creatures.

I talked about this in a recent blog. 

                                                    I know.

But we hear this ancient call from God, in the book of Isaiah: 

for my house shall be called a house of prayer

   for all peoples. 

⁸ Thus says the Lord God,

   who gathers the outcasts of Israel,

I will gather others to them

   besides those already gathered.(Is. 56)

Have you ever noticed how powerful the little words in scripture are?  In this passage the little word  “all” is clearly being pronounce:

for my house shall be called a house of prayer

   for all peoples. 

In my simple thinking this means God is over all, encompasses all, includes all who come to him and to his temple.

That is the great plan of a wildly accepting God.

That is, that even we imperfect soul are to be included in God’s kingdom.

I am writing about this, this morning, because historically there has been a persistent theme preached in pulpits, and taught in our Sunday School — that to be acceptable to God one needs to be “good,” “perfect” and “irreproachable” in looks and behavior.

I will call that a giant — huge — myth.

I call it a myth because no one is perfect.

We all have faults.  

Not one of us is irreproachable.

We all have unkind, not nice, judgmental thoughts the move through our minds.

We all think we are not worthy of God’s love and forgiveness.

So, I invite you to think about those Jesus chose to hang-with the most.

Or, think about the mumbling — grumbling  — Hebrew mob; who God was so patient with for forty years of wondering in the wilderness.

Then I am going to ask you a question, asked of me many years ago, “Is God’s grace not good enough for you?