The Odd Couple: Grit and Grace

Some things require more than grace! To grace must be added a generous portion of grit. Grace is God’s part. Grit is ours. The Bible makes it perfectly clear that Noah FOUND grace, but it also makes it clear that Noah did not discover a customized, fully equipped, self contained, sink proof ocean greyhound in his back yard. He FURNISHED THE GRIT to build this monstrosity of a schooner. It was Noah’s grit that gripped the hammer pounding nails into the gopher wood for 100 years. God furnished the grace. Noah furnished the grit. God is not our personal valet to jump into action at our whim. He will always have grace for us in time of need, but He will never become our handy-man, or yard man or butler. God sent angels to do what Peter could not do when he was locked up in a prison in downtown Jerusalem, but the angel was not required to put Peter’s shoe on his feet and wrap the musty, wrinkled cape around his neck. God will always be ready to step in and do what we can not do, but will not relieve us of adding grit to His grace for the miracle to be completed. Adam was not granted favorite son status when he inherited the Garden of Eden. It was his honeymoon suite but not a retirement village. With his privileges granted by God’s grace came responsibilities. The garden did not contain a lean-t stocked with crosscut saws, riding lawn mowers and a wide variety of power tools. There was no labor pool from which to employ day labor assistance and not one cordless hedge clipper could be found. God did what Adam could not do but required Adam to do the rest. We know what grace is. It is the unmerited favor of God. It is unearned but unending. But what is grit? The dictionary tells us that it means to have stubborn courage. Robert F. Kennedy said, “Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events…it is from numberless acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.” People with grit shape history and not necessarily by quantum leaps and legendary episodes but in numberless, small acts of courage. · Grit is getting a grip on grace and refusing to let go. · Grit is standing fast in faith when running would be much easier. · Grit is having guts to believe God in the face of life’s storms. · Grit is stick-to-itivensss when you are tired to the bone. · Grit is persistency trudging on when problems abound. · Grit is determination to trample defeat under your feet regardless. H. Ross Perot spoke with authority when he said, “Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success, they give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from a winning touchdown.” The problem is not a shortage of grace. God’s grace is always and everywhere sufficient. The shortage is a dismal shortage of grit. It is to this end that I Corinthians 13:13 becomes such a motivation to furnish God’s grace with our grit. I love to read it from The Message. It says, “But for now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly.” The three things that we must have girt to do are: First, have the grit to trust steadily in God. It takes grit at times to trust God’s grace. We see so much “un-grace” that it can cause us to question God’s grace. It reminds me of Dr. Marshall Craig who was preaching at a southern university and urging people to come to Jesus Christ and accept His grace. They began to come from the smartest scholars to the most outstanding athletes. Then from the rear a helpless crippled young man started crawling down the isle. Finally, kneeling at the feet of Dr. Craig, he pleaded, “Sir, you said God had a place for a man. I know God has a place for these other people, “but sir, does God have a place for a wreck like me?” Through his tears, Dr. Craig replied, “Son, God has just been waiting for a wreck like you.” The young man had grit to crawl down the isles on hands and knees, and God had grace to save him. Get a grip on that reality and don’t let it go. Secondly, maintain enough grit to have unswerving hope. Graceless geezers will limit God’s grace and cremate the last ray of hope for people in hopeless situations. They are prophets of gloom and doom. We all need hope and die without it…angrily, slowly and morbidly. You may be flirting with or infatuated with anger and feel justified to do so. You may feel helpless, hopeless and hostile, but you are not outside the perimeters of God’s grace. You need grit to stiffen up, straighten up and look up. Grit will help you to see hope through the dense fog of despair. The net of God’s grace is underneath you, and hope is His canopy over you. And finally, have enough grit to love extravagantly. Knowing how to love is to know how to win. I Corinthians 13:8 declares, “Love never fails.” The more you sow the more you get. Hannah Moore penned it so beautifully like this. “Love never reasons, but profusely gives---gives like a thoughtless prodigal, its all---and trembles than lest it has done too little.” Have enough grit to give love what ever the cost. It’s the only thing that will truly last! To tell someone you love them today may take a lot of grit, but it will be compensated by a lavish supply of God’s grace. Gritting It Out, Pastor Jimmy & Bob

The Big Mix Up

Don’t blame God for something He did not do or give the devil credit for something he had no part of. It’s a mix up that needs to be fixed.

In such a mixed up mess, someone has said that that if the world becomes any more confused, we need not be surprised if monkeys start tossing peanuts to people.

As if things were not bad enough, some ingenious thieves decided to make things even more complicated. They managed to make an unauthorized entry into a department store and staged a “mix up marathon” for the next day when the store opened its doors for business. They went through the store displacing the price tag from one item and placing it on another item. A Plasma TV had the price tag of a pair of baby socks on it, and the baby socks had the price tag of the Plasma TV on it. Items were misstated like that through the entire store, and no body caught the mix up for a few hours.

The shame is that this mix up on price tags was no accident. It was a planned, carefully staged operation that worked like magic for a while until some one discovered that it was a big mistake.

Turn back the pages of time to page 1 in Genesis 3 and take a look at the world’s first lady as she took a fatal shopping trip. She was not shopping for a bargain dress, a pair of designer shoes and a custom made matching bag. She found herself in an auction packed drama for her life when in fact the price tags had been changed.

The change was minor, but the consequences were major. It was die or not die. Live or not live. Obey or not obey. Believe God or not believe God. Read it directly from the marketing strategy summary. It says, “And the serpent said unto the woman, you shall NOT surely die.” (Genesis 3:5) God said they would die, but the serpent changed the price tag to read: NOT DIE.

It was a mix up, but it has messed with our minds ever since that day and been the source of major confusion. It was not an advocacy to perpetrate murder or mayhem or suck down some marijuana. It was a mind game to encourage Adam and Eve to question the motives of God and throw a huge question mark into simple trust in God. It was not a simple slip up. It was a major mix up.

And the mix up goes on. Most Christians I have known are not caustic, calloused consummate complainers. They are confused and mixed up. They know tradition but have not really discovered truth. Paul hit the nail on the head when he wrote these words in II Timothy 3:7. “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Tragically, without the truth, we can never be free to live our lives victoriously in Christ. Jesus said, “You shall KNOW the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32)


Many years ago Sir Isaac Newton had a dog named Diamond that knocked a candle over on Newton’s desk that immediately started a flame which destroyed years of research. New after viewing the destruction simply turned to Diamond and said, “Diamond, Diamond, thou little knowest the damage thou has done.”

It would be impossible for us to calculate the damage that has been done to honest hearted believers who have fallen for the bait and switch tactic or the destructive power that has been caused by switching the price tags.

The only resolution is to revert back to the truth to clear up the mix up. Lets consider a few.

One of the most prevalent mix ups is that you haven’t forgiven if you haven’t forgotten.

Confusion and self condemnation are the results of this mix up. You feel guilty when you remember the man who raped you savagely. You can’t help but remember your nasty divorce when the IRS demands to see a copy of your divorce decree. Every visit to the grave of your son who was killed by a drunk driver who ran over him and left him to die in a puddle of his own blood is a reminder that something bad wrong happened. You can forgive without total amnesia, but you can also pardon them which means that there will be no demand that justice be served.

Don’t confuse forgiveness and pardon. Pardon means to release from further punishment or to excuse for a fault. It means absolution, grace, amnesty and exoneration. It means to literally set free without a penalty hanging over your head.

It takes a greater degree of grace to forgive and pardon when you have a clear memory of the offense that one has committed. We don’t forget the offense, but we forget to file charges against them in the court of heaven. Don’t get mixed up about this and lose your peace. The words of Lewis B. Smedes merits a new point of consideration. He said, “Love lets the past die. It moves people to a new beginning without settling the past. Love prefers to tuck the loose ends of past right and wrongs in the bosom of forgiveness---and pushes us into a new start.”

Forgiveness is not forgetting. It is remembering and letting it go. It’s God’s way of turning loose of the past and pressing on into a brand new future.

A second mix up is to ascertain that my sickness is punishment for my sins.

To me it is despicable to add the weight of guilt to the pains and problems of sickness by accusing the sick person of getting what they deserve because of un-confessed sin. God doesn’t stick us in a wheel chair to accentuate the guilt of our sin. If he did, we wouldn’t need the HOV Lanes on interstate. We would need a “wheel chair tarmac” for all of us to take advantage of. The Bible says, “We have ALL sinned.” Don’t allow the “do gooders” to add insult to your injury. Pray the prayer of faith, and the Lord will raise them up. Speak compassion and not condemnation. Show mercy and not meanness. God is not Dr. Frankenstein inflicting punishment upon you for His pleasure. He has made plans that will not allow you to leave this planet with sickness and diseases. You will leave it all here. There will be no crutches, oxygen tents and hypodermic needles in heaven. His plans for you include a deathless, tearless, painless paradise forever with him. Don’t get mixed up. His promises are certain.

A third mix up is assume that your check book is the thermometer of your spirituality.

Poverty and piety are not Siamese twins, and neither are riches and righteousness. The size of your tombstone, small or great, will have no correlation to your rewards in heaven. Don’t expect God to do kudos in your honor when you jingle the coins you have in your pockets or be impressed by your soup line mentality. God is impressed by your faith not your finances, your patience not your poverty, and your compassion not you’re loud clamoring for attention.

It is neither wealth nor poverty that moves the heart of God. It is your love, loyalty and obedience to Him. Mother Teresa said, “God has not called me to be successful. He has called me to be faithful.” Anything less is a mix up.

What I can do, plus what God can do, equals enough and He demands no more and no less.

Getting UnMixed!

Pastor Jimmy & Bob

The Social Virus of Insignificance

“I am a worm,” the Psalmist declared. How much less significant could a person be? Worms for the most part are ugly, about as low as you can get, vulnerable and often overlooked as nothing.

It represents self defamation at its worst, and yet it is a social virus of insignificance that has plagued men and women down the corridors of history. The 10 men who were sent out as spies to examine the Promised Land returned and were so embarrassed by their ineptitude that they confessed that they were but grasshoppers with tobacco juice running down the sides of their heads and incapable of competing with the horrendous giants in the land. They were petrified by their insignificance.

Insignificance touched a raw nerve with Moses when he was enlisted to confront Pharaoh. Mary was horrified with insignificance when as just a teen age girl was in line to become the Mother of God. The Prodigal son was eaten up with the dry rot of insignificance when he tucked his head in shame and returned to the father to beg forgiveness and a job to work on the farm as a servant. Forget the amenities that go with the job. “Just give me another opportunity,” was the petition that he made. Unworthiness was his plague that he carried home with him.

Now let’s face it. We all long for and hope to have significance that an umpire has at a baseball game. It was in one such game that a hitter lined a ball into the gap in out field and raced around the bases and came sliding into third. After the dust settled, the player picked himself up, dusted off his uniform and blurted out to the umpire, “Well, am I safe or out?” Unperturbed, the seasoned up replied, “You ain’t nothing till I say so.”

Now that’s significance! “You ain’t nothing till I say so.” The search for significance is in the hands of God. He has the last word and the last say. His plan and purpose for our lives holds the paramount position. He turns nobodies into some bodies. He takes sheep herders and makes them kings.

Proverbs 16:33 (The Message) gives us this assurance. “Make your motions and cast you votes, but God has the final say.” He has promised to make us kings and priests and over comers. He has promised that we would win and not lose regardless of what the odds are. He has promised to make us the head and not the tail. He has promised to raise us up and not allow anyone or anything to pull us down. God said it. I believe it, and all hell can’t stop it. God has the final say regarding your significance and His measure may surprise you. It is not based upon your IQ or social status or level of education or financial worth. It is not calculated on your beauty, weight, height or color of your skin or hair.

God recognizes and applauds your significance measured in terms of:

• The values you espouse.
• The Godly example you set.
• The friends you make and keep.
• The words of encouragement you often speak.
• The perseverance you sustain in times of pain.
• The dedication to servant hood as a way of life.
• The difference you make in the lives of others.

As the sun peeked over the eastern horizon, a man strolled along the sandy beach as the tide gently feathered out under his feet. Just ahead, he caught a glimpse of a young man bending down to pick up a stranded starfish and hurling it far out into the sea. Again and again he performed this routine. Finally, the old gentleman ask him why he spent so much time and energy dong what seemed to be a total waste of time. The young man explained that the stranded starfish would die in morning’s sun if something were not done.

“But,” said the elderly man, “there are thousands of miles of beach and millions of starfish. How can your efforts make a difference?” The young man looked down at the starfish he was holding in his hand and replied, “It makes a difference to this one.”

You can make a little difference in the life of someone today, and that little difference can be a big difference to them. You are significant. God says so.

You Are Significant,

Pastor Jimmy & Bob