Living under grace

It's another Monday! The first day of the work week after (hopefully) relaxing a little bit on the weekend. Or maybe working hard on all of those home improvement projects we couldn't do during the week. It's tempting to write Monday off and spend it recovering from Saturday and Sunday, instead of hitting the ground running. (As I write this, I am taking a break on the couch.)

I feel like we, as believers, sometimes treat our lives like a whole string of Mondays--except, instead of using the excuse that today is Monday, we use the excuse that we are "under grace". Any mistakes we make or anything we do that we know we probably shouldn't, we kind of pat ourselves on the back and say, "It's ok. We're under grace. God's got it covered." In doing that, we tend to cheapen grace. How, do you say? Well, think of it this way. Let's say you wanted a new computer, but you needed to save up the money first. So, you worked hard, maybe did some extra jobs, scrimped and saved--and finally you purchased that new computer. On the other hand, let's say you wanted a new computer and someone bought it for you as a gift. Which computer would you treat the best? Would you abuse the computer that was a gift--would you drop it and let your children pull all the keys off the keyboard and spill coffee all over it and say, "It's ok. It was a gift, so it doesn't matter" or would you treat it just as precious (or even more so) as the computer you worked hard to earn the money for.

Before Jesus came, we had to earn our salvation. We had to work hard and do every little thing just right. Then Jesus came and gave us this wonderful, free gift (if we accept it). So, the question is this--do we take his free gift and keep doing whatever we want and treat his sacrifice like it doesn't even matter, just because it was free? Or do we treat it with the respect and reverence it deserves? To do this, we have to live holy lives. We have to live purposefully. We can't just live mediocre, aimless lives and think that grace is going to cover it. We have to be intentional in every little thing that we do. We have to read His Word and know how He wants us to live.

So, after that pep talk to myself, I'm going to get back up and continue my Monday--serving Him and showing Him how thankful I am for His grace. Will I mess up? Probably. Inevitably. But I pledge to not use grace as an excuse for living my life the way I want to, instead of living it the way He wants me to. Who wants a life full of Mondays, anyway? ;)