Have you ever wondered what it’s supposed to look like living as a Bible-believing Christian in today’s world? Everyone, indeed, has their own perspective. Specifically, within the Christian realm, it seems to fall into two extremes: people who will die on a hill for what they believe or people who are so open-minded they have little to no scope of their beliefs. Either ditch is dangerous. And we would do well to avoid both. I’ve wrestled with these questions: how are we to live? What are we to believe? Regarding the Bible, two words capture Jesus in perfect harmony: grace and truth. We are to live full of grace and truth.
Noisy Christianity
One Extreme
I feel like I’ve been on a theological roller coaster for the last several years. There’s been a great deal of “noise” within the church. One person says this, and the other person says that. What happens when someone suddenly tells you there’s a holier way to live? A “more biblically correct” way to live? Striving to live a life worthy of our calling as children of God is biblical and should be obeyed. Still, I’ve witnessed a particular striving that leads to a very spiritually dressed-up legalism. We see this play out in Jesus’s harsh words to the Pharisees in Matthew 23:13, “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.”
The Other Extreme
There is also the extreme flip side of this in which Christians believe we must always be open-minded. Love wins, and cherry-picked Bible verses are the perfect way to claim “Christianity” without actually following Christ. These people create their own spectrum of theology, which ends up being so broad that, in reality, it isn’t true theology at all. It’s a catastrophic mix of opinions that do not align with the truth of the Bible and point their followers to themselves rather than to an accurate knowledge of who God is. We see the result of this in Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.'”
The continuous back-and-forth of beliefs mixed with opinions, personal convictions, and what we should and shouldn’t be thinking and doing is more spiritually exhausting than encouraging. It has left me questioning my faith more often than not.
How to Live Full of Grace and Truth
It brings me back to my original question: how are we to live? What are we to believe? I want to make this as simple as possible because the good Lord knows we all need it that way. We are marvelous at making things complicated! A few months ago, I was feeling frustrated and confused. Reading the book of John captivated me, especially John 1:14:
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
Grace and truth. Out of all the words John could have used to introduce Jesus to the world, he chose “grace” and “truth”. Praise God that He enlightens truth to us when we need it most. It seemed like, in an instant, all the feelings I was battling vanished. Since Jesus was “full of grace,” let’s look at what grace is.
Jesus Came In Grace
Grace is the free and unmerited favor of God and perhaps one of the most significant concepts in human history. Throughout human history, the yearning for kindness has been a universal desire. Nobody naturally wants to be the recipient of hatred and hostility. And deep down, we’ve all struggled with the thought, “I’m never going to be good enough.” God has uniquely and purposefully fashioned us this way. Longing for a graciousness so profound that no human could possibly fill it.
When Jesus, referred to as The Word in John 1:14, came into the world and dwelt among men, human history was forever changed. He entered a broken world and, in the end, was broken on its behalf. And through the Son’s chastisement, He purchased the thing we would never be able to find within ourselves or those around us—irrevocable grace. See, no good deed could purchase our healing. Only the Son’s glorious sacrifice could do that. Our holy living or legalistic striving doesn’t make us right before God or get us closer to Him. Neither should it be used as a tool to judge other people’s lives.
Live Full of Grace and Truth: Putting on Grace
Jesus is described as “full of grace,” perfectly embodying the quality that humans crave the most. If this is what Jesus embodied, shouldn’t we, as Bible-believing Christians, earnestly do the same? Shouldn’t we show the Father’s kindness and empathy in all our relationships? Without it, we indeed become like the Pharisees, shutting the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces and becoming white-washed tombs; we forget the love and grace that we were first shown through Christ. All of this to say, yes, let us put on grace but not prioritize it to the extent of neglecting truth.
Jesus Came as Truth
Truth is not subjective. It is entirely objective in what is believed to be truth and who embodies it. We don’t get to decide what that is. It was decided for us throughout thousands of years of divinely inspired Scripture and at the birth of the Messiah. Truth personified. As Randy Alcorn put it in his article How is Truth Defined, “…Jesus is not only the embodiment of truth but also the savior of humanity. His life, death, and resurrection are seen as the ultimate revelation of God’s truth and love, providing a way for humans to be reconciled to God.”
Live Full of Grace and Truth: Putting on Truth
So what is our job then as children of God? It’s a lot simpler than what you imagine! It seems to all boil down to this. Heralding truth in a way that reflects the glorious news of the Gospel, being obedient to biblical commands, and expectantly clinging to the promises purchased for us. Truth is vital to the Christian walk. We must not turn from it. It’s a sure and steady compass as we sojourn through the vale of life. Straying farther from the truth is tempting if we formulate our own idea of it. Let’s choose biblical truth, learn it, trust it, and grow to love it. May we fight for it and stand on the firm ground, it provides us in a world slowly slipping away from its grasp.
The Harmony of Living Full of Grace and Truth
Circling back around to my original question: how are we to live? Instead of being on one theological extreme or another, let’s live lives full of grace and truth. By doing so, it creates this beautiful symphony of love for God and love for others. It breeds characteristics of undeserved kindness and understanding while simultaneously gripping the raw and life-changing truth of the Bible. The mysterious middle ground of grace and truth is found in Mark 12:30-31, “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
“If God is only holy and not loving, there is no hope for us, no safety in His affection. If God is all love and no holiness, my behavior doesn’t matter, and I am left in my sins, hurting other image-bearers with my selfish deeds. God’s love calls us to holiness so that we love others effectively and, in doing so, bless the world.“
-Phylicia Masonheimer
Lastly, friend, if you’re looking for more encouragement, check out this post that highlights how to continue having the faith of a child even as we mature as Christians. I hope it blesses you!
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