Changing Grace

Changing grace

You could easily miss the letter of Jude in your Bible.  It’s so short and it has only one chapter. In case you haven’t found it yet, it’s tucked in just before Revelation.  And it may be small, but it packs a punch – as we’ve been discovering in our evening services.  It is bang up to date.  Jude warns his readers, whether a single church or a group of churches, about those “who change the grace of our God into a licence for immorality” (verse 4).  To my ears, that has a very contemporary ring.

 

What’s going on?  How can you change the grace of God?  I think we see it happening all around us.  This is a grace which accepts everyone, whatever.  It is a grace which forgives.  It is an inclusive grace, which welcomes everyone.  Now, those things are all true, wonderfully true – but they aren’t the whole truth.  In his grace, God does meet us and accept us as we are and where we are – whoever we are.  But he doesn’t leave us as we are; he changes us.  God’s grace guarantees more than our forgiveness; it also guarantees our holiness, as God transforms us to be more like his own dear Son.

 

These “godless men”, as Jude calls them, are “changing the grace of our God” into a version of ‘grace’ that doesn’t actually change us.  It gives us a licence to do as we want, when the true grace of God gives us the power to do as God wants.  It may be tempting to change God’s grace in this way, but what I really need is a grace that changes me…

Chris Hobbs (Senior Minister) Vicar