Grace And Truth Over Time

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

GRACE AND TRUTH OVER TIME

Matt 23:15

15 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.

NIV

That is right in their faces. Jesus makes it clear that it is important to find those who need to be converted, and it would seem we need to travel over land and sea to find converts. Certainly, we support those who have been called to travel to foreign lands as missionaries, but that leaves us out of any personal responsibility to share the gospel message as we travel through life. All of us may not have the gift of being a witness with words, but we certainly all can be a witness with our lives. What we should be aware of, however, as we do find someone who wishes to convert, at least change from being a non-believer to a believer. These people could even be among the religious groups in our world but have not yet heard that one must be born again in order to see the kingdom of God. It may be semantics when we encounter a person who has some knowledge of God but does not have the truth needed to be among those who will see the kingdom of God. Nevertheless, there is also a danger that when we do encounter someone who wishes to follow Jesus, that we do not overburden them with so many rules and regulations, they become discouraged and walk the other way, thinking this is just another religion which they only see as hypocrites. This is what Jesus was saying about the teachers of the law and the Pharisees. They may find a convert, but then make that person so overwhelmed with the law, only to find they cannot meet all the laws demands and then become discouraged, or worse yet, become like the Pharisees. No, we must be sure that we exhibit the truth but with grace. We remember Henry Clouds' formula: truth plus grace, over time, equals changed lives. This simply means that even with all the truth and all the grace we can muster, a person will need time to digest the truth and come to their own understanding of how the Lord would have them live out their gospel in their lives. In essence, this is the sum of discipleship. Sharing truth, in amounts they can digest, rather than trying and expecting them to be just like us all at once, or twice as much.