Graceful Ministry

Grace is realizing that God is for us. God is not some angry beast ready to devour us at every mistake. God is passionate for us. God is longing for us. God is calling us into a relationship. God wants us to experience his heart. Brennan Manning declares, “Jesus Christ did not come to make us nicer people with better morals. He came to transform people into better lovers. He came to make brand new people alive with the fire of God.” Only God loves us the way we long to be loved. Only Jesus can change our heart. Only the Spirit can fill our soul with joy and peace and love.
Grace is the favor shown by God to sinners. It is the divine goodwill offered to those who neither deserve nor ever can hope to earn it. Grace is the divine disposition to work in our hearts, wills, and actions, so as actively to communicate God’s self-giving love for humanity. As Paul says in Ephesians, “Even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:5ff).

God’s gracious presence in our lives assures us of forgiving love and empowers us for reconciliation in our brokenness. Everyone is broken. God’s power is never stronger than in our brokenness. The theology of the cross teaches us that God’s glory shines brightest when it shines through brokenness. The central focus of our faith is glory through brokenness – from the cross to the grave, from the grave to the sky. Henri Nouwen reminds us that, like the Christ we serve, we are all wounded healers. Ministry has taught me that we are called precisely through our brokenness. If we deny the brokenness then we also deny the possibility of God’s grace to meet us in our brokenness. As a minister of God I have been charged with the ministry of reconciliation. I am committed to helping people discover the source of their brokenness and the possibility of their reconciliation through the grace of God. Because I believe in God’s grace in the midst of brokenness, I will stand before the people, sit beside beds in ICU, and speak into the lives of people “the Body of Christ broken for you.”