Chapter 14
Whitall Smith demonstrates in this chapter how we have allowed the world’s understanding of words like “love” and “grace” to redefine God’s definitions. Hannah started out this week describing an argument commonly espoused against the happy life she is outlining. She wrote about those who claim freedom and the growth that comes with it are a result of God’s grace on not a person’s practices. Personally I’ve come up against similar arguments within the Church today. It’s interesting to note how people over the past 150 years have not changed much.
How often is GRACE relied on when people are called to:
- Read their Bible every day
- Be in prayer continually
- Attend Church weekly
- Don’t date and then marry non-Christians
- Maintain your virginity until marriage
I can almost hear the same words that the “intelligent lady” spoke to Whithall Smith, “Ah, but, Mrs. Smith, I believe in growing in grace.”
When we teach the disciplines above—and many more biblically grounded practices—we are not taking away from God’s Amazing Grace, but we are emphasizing Jesus’s teaching from John 8:31–32,
“If you continue in My word, then you are truly My disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Or His statement in John 15:5,
“I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in Me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”
Our acceptance of God’s truth is what gives us the freedom and sets us apart for eternity with Him. When we believe and practice His truth we then are changed and become people who offer that same change to others—we bear fruit. Faith will have the accompanying application of His truth. When we become part of the work that God is doing—when once our lives were meaningless in the grand scheme—it is nothing other than God’s amazing grace.
Growing in grace does not mean that we grow experience God’s unmerited favor no matter without actions; that’s the world’s definition. We grow in grace in the kingdom of God when we leave the leading and the process to Him to control.
Many Christians do not mature because they want to maintain control of the process. This is a rejection of God’s teaching of grace for a worldly understanding and definition of grace.
Thoughts and Questions for Interaction
- What was Mrs. Smith emphasizing when she referred to many Christians who are both the garden and the gardener?
- How might identify biblical disciplines (applicational truths) of our faith in Mrs. Smith's the garden illustration?
- What expectations or experiences do we add to our growing processes that move us away from God’s grace?
- How can we insure that our “strivings” are healthy practices that keep us centered in God’s grace?
