Extensions of His Grace
When we speak about God's amazing grace, His unmerited favor extended to all people everywhere, we generally think of ourselves as recipients. Indeed, we receive God's grace throughout our lives—prevenient grace that draws us to Him, grace that saves and sanctifies, and healing, restoring, and enabling grace. God benevolently responds to us in countless ways. But we are not receivers only. We also can be conduits through which God's grace can flow to others.
We Nazarenes, in our Wesleyan theological understanding, know the need to respond to the means of grace by faith.
Further, we recognize the privilege of participating with God's initiative to extend grace, understanding that His grace will bring results that far exceed our mere human activity.
When we open ourselves to His working, God will quicken our minds and spirits to respond to others by extending grace. We are called upon to be His grace conduit in everyday life, often in trying circumstances. A few months ago while I was presiding at a district assembly, a person with a non-Wesleyan, non-biblical view of the value and ministry of women, confronted my husband, Moody, and me. Since his problem was an issue of theology rather than methodology, the situation called for an uncompromising and grace-filled response. By faith, we asked God's grace to flow through Moody and me in our conversations with him.
In the next service of the district assembly, after I preached the previously-planned sermon entitled "Love Made Perfect," the first seeker at the altar was this individual.
God's grace was at work purifying his heart and increasing his understanding and acceptance of God's creation and ministry.
Another grace opportunity came when I learned from a member of our office staff that a person had called to express disappointment with a particular resource item produced at Nazarene International Headquarters. I was prompted by the Holy Spirit to call this man to extend grace and an invitation for healthy conversation. This God-moment led to relationship. Later this man and his wife—who had been total strangers to us until this point—met Moody and me in another city at a special event. Today we continue to enjoy friendship.
When I visited his church to preach, I made new acquaintances through which God worked another grace-miracle. I discovered more of my Nazarene roots by locating the pastor's wife for whom I was named. Before I was born, she and her pastor husband received my parents into the Church of the Nazarene in Bennettsville, South Carolina. This pastor's wife, now in her 90s, and I celebrated blessed moments of God's grace when for the first time we met each other via telephone.
We never know how God may use us to extend His grace or what results we might enjoy. May we constantly open our hearts to receive God's grace, His kind response to our humanity. Then may we anticipate each day the opportunities He gives us to extend His grace."Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 1:7).
Nina G. Gunter
Holiness Today, Jan/Feb 2008
Please note: This article was originally published in 2008. All facts, figures, and titles were accurate to the best of our knowledge at that time but may have since changed.
