Works versus grace: love and action

"Welcome to the ringside, sports fans one and all. In the blue corner and crowd favourite 'Works'. I'm yelling out loud into this microphone and you can just barely hear me over the roar this crowd has. And it's not just the Christians or Muslims fans that make up a huge percentage of the audience tonight, but also the countless others that have been drawn to what promises to be amazing display of strength, power and endurance!
In the red corner, is 'Grace', who frankly is a bit of an unknown despite being surrounded with an unbelievable multitude of stories and rumours. Fans of Grace are largely made up of people that are just passionately anti-works, as not a lot has been discovered about grace at all!
Yeeow! Works has just head-butted Grace before the match has even begun. We are in for a titanic battle tonight!"

I've often said that works is a easy way of knowing you're right and proving you're in with god (whichever god you want to believe in or make up).

Grace - getting God's goodness when you don't deserve it - is really the defining unique (and often criticised as foolish) feature of Christianity from all other 'religions' or worldviews. No other religion is as idealistic or naive to propose that if people knew they could get away with this, that they would shed their selfishness and puts others first.

But astute people who've been around me, know that one of the great criticism I have for the people that claim to know God, identify with him, and are recognised as being his followers, is that they largely are not seen today as reflecting God in their actions... essentially 'works.'

Certainly in Australia, public Christians, Churches and Pastors are not generally viewed as people or bodies that are self-sacrificing, authority-defying, gracious, humble and sinner-loving people in line with Jesus who gave up all by dying on a cross for all of humanity.

We are to be visible as people that do the works of Christ- but at the same time, know that none of those works save us or make us more special in anyway. It's a tension so many find hard to resolve for themselves, much less explain to others...


I've been reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Cost of Discipleship...

"The first question to ask is: From whom are we to hide the visibility of our discipleship? Certainly not from other men, for we are told to let them see our light. No. We are to hide it from ourselves. Our task is simply to keep on following, looking only to our Leader who goes on before, taking no notice of ourselves or of what we are doing. We must be unaware of our own righteousness, and see it only in so far as we look unto Jesus; then it will seem not extraordinary, but quite ordinary and natural. Thus we hide the visible from ourselves in obedience to the word of Jesus. If the 'extraordinary' were important for its own sake, we should, like fanatics, be relying on our own fleshy strength and power, whereas the disciple of Jesus acts simply in obedience to his Lord. That is, he regards the 'extraordinary' as the natural fruit of obedience."


Following Jesus is about falling in and growing in love with Jesus and God. Love always produces action towards what you love. The action doesn't make the true love occur, and action cannot be the reason for true love. But true love always produces action, and usually that kind of action is always creative.

May your love continue to deepen. May you encourage and inspire others to love more deeply too. And may the world benefit from the fruits of yours and others deeper love.

School environment, overpolicing, and sharing love

On Thursday, a student got angry, shoved me and stormed out of one of my year eight classes. When I reported it to the vice-principal, I told him it really wasn't a big deal. I was shocked to discover later that the student had been suspended for four days.

On the one hand, the student in question is not known for his skills at respecting other students or staff, or working productively with others. I don't know exactly how many other occasions he has been suspended or what the nature of them might be.

But looking from a different perspective, I am somewhat uncomfortable with the amount of traditional 'policing' that is expected of a teacher.

In the course of my normal life, I don't see much of police (except for one of my best mates). Some weeks I don't see any sign of them (except passing the cop shop on my way to the supermarket). And that's ok. I know they exist and they are doing their job somewhere else. It's that traditional line of "if you're not doing anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about".

But I think it is possible to over-police, where an atmosphere of distrust is actually generated. Unfortunately we can easily think of situations locally and overseas, where this is happening.

During these moments of being 'overpoliced' - and maybe it's the deviant streak within me, but I feel more self-conscious of how my actions are going to be perceived, and think a lot more of what I could be doing wrong - thoughts that I wouldn't have been inspired to have if not for the surveillance I was undergoing.


It's strange, in my previous work with groups of youth, I was conscious of my supervision role and ensuring control over my 'charges' but never seeing it as 'policing'.

I think the difference is that in the past, I have had more direct control over the 'feel' of the environment, whereas at school, I play only a very small role in how the overall atmosphere is experienced by students. So many other forces are in play, and some of which I am expected to support even if I personally disagree with.

Looking back, working in youth group settings affords so much freedom and ability to recreate 'life' as we like it to be, and, due to the voluntary nature of participation, a greater sense of love and appreciating them being there.

Although I've verbally said that to many students, I'm not sure if I fully convey that sense to my students in general... particularly this year... that is, that I value their presence in my class and around me in other settings.

Hmmm. Any suggestions on how I could do this would be appreciated for the school setting.

Sure, in youth group, there is also a greater sense of the love and grace that flows directly from our Saviour, but... maybe it would be of great benefit to 'our youth', to be more intentional about equipping them to somehow bring more of the 'youth group vibe' into other areas of their lives... which some of that is just having an attitude of greater consideration for the people in their lives - not just teachers, but their parents, bosses, other 'authorities', and fellow students and peers in general.

One way could be... actively target one person (it's always best to start on only one or two) to pray for, and then to think of practical tangible ways to bless them each week. And for each person to report but regularly how they are going and what is happening as a result of these actions.

Any other suggestions along this theme would also be valuable.