GRACE

“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” - 1 Peter 5:10.

I am by no means a perfect man. Some days it would be hard to call me good. I have my daily struggles. Some days I come out on top of those struggles, some days I don’t. But by the grace of God, I am able to get up every morning and start another day anew.

How I have come to know Christ hasn’t been very spectacular. There haven’t been any near death experiences, any major crises that opened my eyes to the Lord. It has been more of a slow build up. Like God has always been there, just waiting for me to make the turn toward him. And I believe that he has always been there, watching me make mistake after mistake, seeing me miss clue after clue. Each time he has shown me the kind of grace that can only come from the Lord himself.

Like it says in 1 Peter, “…after you have suffered a little while…” we will be restored by his grace. Like I said before, I haven’t had to suffer very much. I have been incredibly fortunate to be brought up in a home with loving parents who are still together. I am happily married to the love of my life and my best friend. Life has been pretty good to me. So the suffering that is talked about in that verse, at least for me, has been internal. I’ve always known about God. I was raised in the church. But I had never really known him. And at a certain point in my life, I think I was about 21 and getting close to graduating from college, I could tell that something was missing. I would come home on weekends and go to church with my parents and just sit there thinking, “Why do I feel like this? Why do I feel empty?” And after struggling with these feelings for months, God showed up in the form of a guy. This guy had come to our fraternity chapter meeting saying that he worked for the campus ministries program and he wanted to start a small bible study with anyone in my fraternity who was interested. Needless to say, this had “work of the Lord” written all over it. So I decided to jump in. And when I did, it was like my eyes had been opened for the first time. He told us that being a Christian is more than just going to church, being a nice guy, and following the rules. To be a follower of Christ means having an active, fulfilling relationship with him, and that the Lord wants us to pursue him and to love him as he pursues and loves us.

And it was then that the void that I had began to fill. I realized that no matter how much I screwed up, he will always love me. That if I would confess my sins to him, he would forgive me. And to know that there is someone who loves me that much, someone that shows me that much grace…it makes serving him on a daily basis that much easier.

As I said at the beginning of this post, I am not a perfect man. None of us are. And we must strive to become more like him every single day. We must strive to be better friends, better husbands, better fathers, and better men. And without the grace of God, we’re dead in the water. It is a daily struggle, but with the Lord on our side, there is nothing that can defeat us.

How did you come to know Christ?

Was it a slow build or a sudden jolt?

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This was a guest post by Caleb Reeves. 

Caleb lives in Spanish Fort, AL. He spends his time with his beautiful wife and two dogs, doing as much fishing as possible and living life one day at a time. He is taking each day as an opportunity to become a better man of God.

A Man of Grace

What is a Man of Grace? What is Grace? Wouldn’t it be easy for me to give a few cliché scriptures and a rah-rah message about being victorious through grace? Who am I to be writing this article about Grace?

Inside of me I have two men: the former man and the after man. I was an evangelical atheist, a physically strong man, an intellectually gifted man, an impatient man, an arrogant man, a demeaning man – a bully of a man. But when I was 22, I had a very powerful experience with God - a paradigm shifting, spiritually awakening, humility inducing, tear generating and thought provoking experience. My whole perception of self, character, reality and behaviors were radically altered that day.

Fast forward to when I was 24 and my wife and I had our first daughter. My wife and I have been together since high school and she has seen me as the before man and grown with me as the after man. Regardless of how close we were, nothing could prepare me for the moment when the doctors informed us that our first child was born with Down Syndrome. Immediately, the before man crept into my mind… “How could I, me of all people, be born with such a mistake of a daughter? Doesn’t God know who I am? My seed should be superior.”

Those thoughts soon faded and we soon fell deeply in love with our girl. She now is almost 5 and truly a joy to us and everyone she comes in contact with. So why have I shared this with you in a supposedly encouraging article about being a Man of Grace?

God has taught me many lessons on grace and the exhibition thereof through my daughter. Jesus never condemned the weak. He never shuffled aside the outcast. He never verbally abused those with less understanding. He didn’t respond aggressively (even if we would consider it just worthy) when he was ridiculed or mocked by those who didn’t know any better. God continually brings up the life of Jesus, when he was here as a man among his brethren here on this world, when guiding me on how to raise my daughter.

Since my daughter has Down Syndrome, she constantly draws attention – some harmless and some demeaning. She looks, talks, walks and acts just a little different than a ‘normal’ child. People look, stare, make comments or make faces and we have even been asked in the nicest way possible, “How could we bring such a child into the world?" The before man would have given them a piece of my mind; or maybe a piece of a few knuckles as well. The after man, the Man of Grace that I am growing into, strives to respond and behave as Jesus did. Sometimes I have to turn the other cheek, sometimes I respond with a blessing, sometimes I have to remind myself that they know not what they do, sometimes I have to remind myself that they are behaving exactly as the world has taught them and sometimes I find a reasonable person that I can reach out to and lead into meaningful conversation.

So am I a Man of Grace? You tell me. I know I am much more graceful than I used to be but I’m always learning, always being molded into the image of Jesus, always struggling with the former man and always thankful that others treat me with grace when I do.

How has God taught or shown you Grace in your life?

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This has been a guest article by a great friend of mine 

and brother in Christ, R. Evans.

Look forward to more great articles from him in the future!