Amazing Grace

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Amazing Grace.
Have you seen the movie? {there's a movie you know...}
No? Oh well, have you heard the song?
Its quite well known.
The most widely-recognised hymn in the world for the past 250 years.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I'm found was blind but now I see.

Did you know that the man who wrote that hymn, John Newton, was at one time a slave trader?
The preacher who spoke about Amazing Grace at church this Sunday said, John Newton didn't write that song because he had an album coming out and needed another track for it...


This song was written out of this man's experience, his need and desperation... and his life-changing realisation that Grace is indeed, amazing enough to embrace someone like him.


The song still stirs hearts when its sung. It moves people.
It strikes a chord of recognition 250 years after it was written.

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As the preacher went on to tell the story of the Prodigal Son, I found myself at first thinking of others who needed to hear this message, but then with tears pricking at my own eyelids I caught a glimpse of Amazing Grace myself.


Not ordinary grace, the preacher said, AMAZING Grace.


The prodigal, who had broken his father's heart and squandered his money, found himself in dire straits and finally came to his senses. The best he could hope for as he sat in the pig pen was ordinary grace.


"I will go to my father," he said to himself, "I will say, Father forgive me; I am not worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired men...."


Even ordinary grace was a lot to ask considering what this son had done to his father. 
But he was prepared to grovel, and to spend the rest of his life working to earn his way back to being even a second class citizen in his father's house, a servant. 


The son in this story {like so many of us when we realise our shortcomings} saw himself as unworthy.
Jesus deliberately puts this in his story of the prodigal to show that he understands our human tendency to feel unworthy and think we have to work for forgiveness.
But he also depicts the father in such a way to show us God's heart of Amazing Grace towards us, his Prodigals.
Nothing ordinary about it.

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The son returns home, probably rehearsing what he would say to his father, wondering whether his father would give him an audience, would hear him out, would give him a chance to earn back his favour...
but what happens?
The father is out by the gate. Looking. Hoping.

"And when he was still a long way off his father saw him and ran to him."


There he was covered in pig muck.
His father didn't care. Embraced him.
Ordered the Best robe, restoring his dignity. 
A ring - restoring his place in the family... 
Shoes for his feet - only a servant went barefoot and this father did not receive his son as a servant. 
He did not have to earn his forgiveness. This was not ordinary grace.


It is Amazing Grace.


This story, told this way, so resonated with me.
I'm a person who has always identified with Martha.
You know, the one who ran around doing while her sister Mary got to enjoy herself sitting at Jesus' feet?

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For so many years I tried to earn Grace, and I didn't even realise I was doing it.
It started off with good intentions, of course. Serving God, helping people. I had all the right words...
But deep down I was fighting off the feelings of being unworthy.
Of being not enough.
Like the son who came to his senses, the best I could imagine was that my father would let me be a servant in his House. That somehow I could make myself worthy by doing.


Anyone out there identify?
Amazing Grace is a radical concept, even to one like me, who is very long in the {Christian} tooth.

T'was Grace that taught my heart to fear. And Grace, my fears relieved.  How precious did that Grace appear  The hour I first believed.

Amazing Grace. Its a message we need to hear again and again.
Grace, God's Grace is really and truly Amazing.
Its not Ordinary. Its not what we expect.
And its far beyond what we humans are usually be able to give.


John Newton met Amazing Grace in a storm. His slave ship drifted for weeks, crippled, storm tossed. they were all to be lost at sea. 


As this uncouth, ill-mannered slaver trader hit rock bottom, he called out to God for mercy.
And mercy found him. Miraculously the ship was saved and made it to land.
John Newton spent the rest of his life fighting to see the slave trade abolished. 
And he wrote a song with a haunting, heart rending tune... that is based on the Sorrow Chants the slaves would hum in their chains.  Isn't that Amazing?

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Sometimes we can't comprehend Amazing Grace until we hit rock bottom.

Sometimes its only when we come to the end of ourselves that we realise Amazing Grace is not earned.


Only when I was broken, at the end of myself and unable to "serve" did I begin to glimpse and see that God, in fact, is more interested in my heart than my good works.
That he wants me for me
When I am broken, hurting, depressed and at the end of myself - he still runs to meet me.
There is no condemnation in his eyes. No reproach in his voice.
That's some pretty Amazing kind of Grace.

Through many dangers, toils and snares  I have already come;  'Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far  and Grace will lead me home.

Amazing Grace can't be earned.
We can't make ourselves worthy enough to receive it.
It just simply... Amazing. 

{PS: The explanations about The prodigal, Amazing Grace and John Newton in this post come from the message I heard today at church by Allan Meyer, a guest speaker from Australia. His words really touched me and I wanted to share them with you; I've just tried to record what he said. Any pats on the back for the insights really belong to him.}

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