Living Story Grace

http://www.igracemusic.com/hymnbook/hymns/t12.html

How fun is it for my research topic to be “love”! Earlier this week, I posted a ‘love’ quote by J.I. Packer. (I’ve butchered it in trying to explain it, so “>read it here if you’re interested:-). Today I am posting the words and the music to hymn he references. Listen, or better yet, sing along to begin a weekend of worship, remembering his mercy from first to last.
Lyrics here

Sandra McCracken

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” 1 John 4:7-8
“‘God is love’ is the complete truth about God so far as the Christian is concerned… Every single thing that happens to him expresses God’s love to him… God is love to him — holy, omnipotent love — at every moment and in every event of every day’s life. Even when he cannot see the why and the wherefore of God’s dealings, he knows that there is love in and behind them, and so he can rejoice always, even when, humanly speaking, things are going wrong. He knows that the true story of his life, when known, will prove to be, as the hymn says, ‘mercy from first to last’ — and he is content.” 1 Understanding God’s love this way is essential for a healthy Christian life. Anything less leaves us impoverished and weak.” J.I. Packer

“[One] reason…why the experiential reality of perceiving God is unfamiliar country today [is
that] the pace and preoccupations of urbanized, mechanized, collectivized,secularized modern life are such that any sort of inner life (apart from the existentialist Angst of society’s misfits and the casualties of the rat race) is very
hard to maintain. To make prayer your life priority, as countless Christians of former days did outside as well as inside the monastery, is stupendously difficult in a world that runs you off your feet and will not let you slow down. And if you attempt it, you will certainly seem eccentric to your peers, for nowadays involvement in a stream of programmed activities is decidedly ‘in,’
and the older ideal of a quiet, contemplative life is just as decidedly ‘out.’ That there is widespread hunger today for more intimacy, warmth, and affection in our fellowship with God is clear… but the concept of Christian life as sanctified
rush and bustle still dominates, and as a result the experiential side of Christian holiness remains very much a closed book.” from J.I.Packer, Keeping in Step with the Spirit via Tim Keller’s study on 1 John.

“The word ‘grace’ remains as part of our religious vocabulary, and we regularly hear it used in public prayer (‘grant us the help of thy grace…’, ‘give us grace that we may…’). But to many it suggests only vague notions of a celestial battery-charge administered through the sacraments, while to more (one fears) it signifies nothing whatsoever. And meantime many practice in the name of Christianity forms of religion which frustrate and deny the grace of God completely. Both the legalism of the Roman Catholic doctrine of depending for salvation on loyalty to an ecclesiastical system, and the moralism of liberal Protestant doctrine that all will be saved who try, even a little, to be good, spring from the same root cause – failure to grasp the meaning of grace. No need in Christendom is more urgent than the need for a renewed awareness of what the grace of God really is.”

We think less and less about the better things that Christ will bring us at his reappearance because our thoughts are increasingly absorbed by the good things we enjoy here. No one would wish persecution or destitution on another, but who can deny that at this point they might do us good?” J.I. Packer, Affirming the Apostle’s Creed

Where does hope grow? In times of hopelessness. When our hope in earthly things fades, our Christian hope swells. Earthly hope is based on limited vision which leads us to dream mild dreams by heavenly standards: a new IPad for our birthday, an A on the bio exam, a much-needed job, or a longed-for spouse.

While there is nothing wrong with hoping for good gifts in this life, Christian hope far exceeds the small story of earthly hope. Focused on resurrection, restoration, and renewal, Christian hope centers on two key chapters in biblical history. The first is the Resurrection; this real story of Christ dying and being raised from the dead invites us to die and live anew with the raised Christ. It is this story that allows us to look at a world rapidly unraveling, and proclaim with confidence, “New life will arise out of this doomed day.”

Christian hope also focuses on the end of the story told in Revelation 21 and 22, an ending that writes a new and eternal beginning. Revelation tells us that in the new heavens and the new earth there will be no more death, disease, disequilibrium, or despoiling. Instead, there will be health and wholeness, work and worship. Knowing that one day no more tears will flow encourages us to work intentionally on restoring this broken world even as we wait expectantly for a day when our Lord will come and complete the process.

And when our Lord comes, I John tells us: “we will be like him, for we will see him as he really and truly is.” (I Jn 3:4, NLT) Whether we know it or not, this is the deep hope our hearts were made for, the hope that brings our stories into focus. Because of Christian hope, N.T. Wright, tells us, we live differently in this world: “Our task in the present …is to live as resurrection people in between Easter and the final day, with our Christian life, corporate and individual, in both worship and mission, as a sign of the first and a foretaste of the second.” Tom Wright,Surprised by Hope, p. 30