Giving Grace Starts with Receiving Grace

One day last week, I met with five Christians – a pastor, a writer, a philanthropist, an attorney, and a counselor. They all agreed that even though we talk about grace in the person of Jesus, we haven’t applied grace to one of the darkest issues of our time — abortion.

Why is that?

Because we aren’t yet fully convinced of how radical God’s grace is. We still hold our own dark secrets and places in our lives that we think grace won’t cover. we apply His grace to some areas – but not all.

Sometimes, in order to feel better about ourselves, we are tempted to point to areas in other’s lives that are worse than our own. 

I believe the enemy of our souls launches a full out attack to keep us categorizing sin and thinking there are things that can’t be put under God’s grace.

Just look at the story in John 8:2-11. that took place 2,000 years ago, and the enemy’s same tactic is the same. He riled up the religious leaders to go catch a woman in the act of adultery and bring her to Jesus, thinking this was a no-win situation for him. They Thought they would find something in his response they could use to bring him down.

“They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus…” (John 8:6, emphasis mine)

But Jesus.

He doesn’t play their religious game with its legalistic rules, Because He knows that in God’s eyes, sin is sin.

“Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7)

He gets to the heart of the matter. We all have sinned. And it doesn’t matter what type it is.

But Jesus.

He offers the good news that because of His sacrifice on the cross, there is no condemnation, and His grace is what gives us the power to be able to “go and sin no more,” living a new life in Him.

I’m excited to be applying grace to the issue of abortion, because it reveals Jesus in more of His fullness. There is no issue, no mistake, no sin that is outside His grace. In fact, His grace is the only thing that can break the power of the shame and secrecy that we all are tempted to use to hide our own darkest parts.

Once we acknowledge His grace and let it freely pour into the darkest areas of our own life, then we can freely pour it out on the dark social issues of our time, including abortion.

It starts with us.

Whether we are a pastor, a writer, a philanthropist, a social worker, an at-home mom or a CEO, we can all be part of bringing grace to the abortion issue. And we can begin by applying God’s radical grace to our own lives.