Author Archives: Steve

Walking the Walk of Grace…

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It was Phillip Yancey in his book What’s so Amazing about Grace, who first showed me the “new math” that God uses. He writes:

“I grew up with the image of a mathematical God who weighed my good and bad deeds on a set of scales and always found me wanting. Somehow I missed the God of the Gospels, a God of mercy and generosity who keeps finding ways to shatter the relentless laws of ungrace. God tears up the mathematical tables and introduces the new math of grace….

…. Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more—no amount of spiritual calisthenics and renunciations, no amount of knowledge gained from seminaries and divinity school, no amount of crusading on behalf of righteous causes. And grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less—no amount of racism or pride or pornography or adultery or even murder. Grace means God already loves us as much as an infinite God can possibly love.” ~Philip Yancey in What’s so Amazing about Grace, p. 70.

A few pages later Yancey observes…

“At the center of Jesus’ parables of grace stands a God who takes the initiative toward us: a lovesick father who runs to meet the prodigal, a landlord who cancels a debt too large for any servant to reimburse, an employer who pays eleventh-hour workers the same as the first-hour crew, a banquet-giver who goes out to the highways and byways in search of undeserving guests.” Philip Yancey in What’s so Amazing about Grace, p. 91.

That’s not good business, but that’s what is happening in our text. Leaving behind 99 sheep to go find one is not the old math of the law. It’s generally not considered a good idea. But it is the idea that Jesus uses to show us how God loves us. It’s the new math of grace. It’s the way God loves you. He loves you with a reckless love.

This podcast speaks of his great grace.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Leave No Bitterness…

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I have observed one thing among true Christians in their differences in many countries: What divides and severs true Christian groups and Christians — what leaves a bitterness that can last for 20, 30 or 40 years (or for 50 or 60 years in a son’s memory) — is not the issue of doctrine or belief which caused the differences in the first place. Invariably it is lack of love — and the bitter things that are said by true Christians in the midst of differences. These stick in the mind like glue. And after time passes and the differences between the Christians or the groups appear less than they did, there are still those bitter, bitter things we said in the midst of what we thought was a good and sufficient objective discussion. It is these things — these unloving attitudes and words — that cause the stench that the world can smell in the church of Jesus Christ among those who are really true Christians. ~Francis Shaeffer in The Mark of the Christian.

Rocky Mountain Wallpaper…

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Every now and then you catch a glimpse of something, or Someone, beyond this world, right in this world.

The Scripture is right: Romans 1:20 (ESV) …[God’s] invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made….

Stephen Hawking wrote:

The odds against a universe like ours emerging out of something like the Big Bang are enormous. I think there are clearly religious implications.

And:

It would be very difficult to explain why the universe would have begun in just this way except as an act of God who intended to create beings like us. ~Hawking as quoted by Timothy Keller in The Reason for God, p. 130.

Taken from Catamount Falls Trail near Green River Falls, CO. A larger rendering of this image is available by clicking the image. Permission to use this image in any personal or non-profit setting is given. Contact Steve Shields for commercial use of this photo.