What My Reader Response Paper Turned Into: GRACE

The grace of God is like reader response criticism. It is so simple, yet it is so complex. Within reader response we tend to lean extremely right or extremely left. Either reader response is completely open ended, do what you want, it’s all about what the reader thinks, believes and understands; or reader response can take a completely new criticism pendulum swing that is very structured and one hundred percent text defined where the reader does not matter and everything needed to interpret a text is within that text.

The grace of God is similar in that we tend to swing the pendulum too far right or too far left. Either we are all about where sin abounds, grace abounds, therefore who cares what we do, think, or say?! God’s grace will cover us! Or we are misconstrued about grace somehow thinking that we earn it in some way, though the Bible does not support that.

Here’s where I am with grace: every time I think I get it, I don’t. God is CONSTANTLY renewing my mind on what I think grace to be. And He has to, but the world is constantly working to destroy what He has made new.

When I was struggling with sex addiction, or as Dr. Hill called it, sex seduction, I fell several times in about a two week period. Two things happened to me concerning grace. First, I could not, would not believe that God could forgive me. It was not that He would not, but that He could not. Shame was all over my face, I could not stand to look at God because I just knew He wanted to forgive me, but He could not, because I could not conquer the sin in my life. As a result of my shame, I did not seek God for forgiveness and thus cut off my source of life, therefore I had to keep sinning because sex was again my source of life. Except it did not give me life. It only produced death in me. I did not deserve grace. Even if God was ready and willing to give it to me, I did not know how to receive it.

Finally, I prayed for forgiveness. Overcoming my shame, I asked God to forgive me in an odd way. I lay in bed, flowing tears, peeling layers of chipped paint off of my wall as He was pulling layers of brokenness off of my heart. I saw what was happening. The enemy was trying to destroy me, and I was playing along. I asked God to forgive me, and I believe that He did; but it was not long before my longing for intimacy hit once again and I was back in the same situation as before. As this cycle continued, God’s grace became like a credit card to me and I was just about maxed out in my head. I kept buying things that I did not need and going to Him to pay it off. Grace became overrated very quickly and I did not understand how to break the cycle.

God has healed me of my sexual issues. But grace keeps coming up. What is it? How do I understand it once and for all? Will I ever totally grasp it? Is it okay if I don’t?

All my life I have been taught to clean up my own messes. You make a mess, clean it up. It has been drilled into me because I am famed at home for not cleaning up my messes. I would cook and leave the dishes dirty. I would do some craft in the living room and leave things out everywhere. In July of 2003 I was thirteen and had my first asthma attack. I threw up all over the kitchen floor and before my mom would take me to the hospital she made me clean it up. So, it makes no sense to me as to why I could do something wrong, stupid, out of line and completely punishable but God cleans up my mess for me. Why is that okay? How am I supposed to accept that?

The grace of God empowers us to say NO to ungodliness. Once I understood this concept, I began to understand grace. Grace is not just about forgiveness. Grace gives us the power to never sin again. You are free. So stop thinking and living like a slave.

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope-the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. Titus 2:11-13

Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. Romans 6:13-14

{ACTUALLY, just read ALL of Romans 6 =)}