Disciplined by Grace

Posted on September 6, 2012 by Barbara Harper

“Disciplined by Grace” is the fifth chapter in the book The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges, which we’re discussing every Thursday in the “Reading Classics Together” challenge at Challies‘ place.

“Disciplined by Grace” seems an oxymoron to many who don’t associate the two together, but Bridges asserts that that’s because of a misunderstanding of both concepts.

The epigraph for this chapter is Titus 2:11-12: “For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.”The word for “teach” there “means much more than…imparting knowledge. Originally it was used as a term for the rearing of children and included not only instruction, but also admonition, reproof, and punishment, all administered in love and for the benefit of the child” (p. 80).

Spiritually, “discipline includes all instruction, all reproof and correction, and all providentially directed hardships in our lives that are aimed at cultivating spiritual growth” (p. 80). But, “all of God’s disciplinary processes are grounded in His grace – His unmerited and unconditional favor toward us (p. 80).

It’s so important to keep these two concepts in balance. With a heavier leaning towards discipline, even good spiritual practices designed to grow us can become performance-based (thinking we earn God’s favor by doing them), while a heavier leaning toward grace can lead to laxity.

Bridges points out from the verse above that grace teaches us to say “No” to some things — ungodliness and worldly passions (and he points out that ungodliness is basically “disregarding God, ignoring Him, or not taking Him into account in one’s life. It is a lack of fear and reverence for Him”[(p. 85]) — and “Yes” to others — self control, uprightness, and godliness. This is the basic “put off/put on” scenario of Ephesians 4:20-32.

But we need to always remember “With all this emphasis on practical Christian living…we must lose sight of the fact that it is grace — not law — that teaches us” (p. 92). The law “commanded but gave no ability to obey” and then “condemned me for my failure to obey” (p. 92). But “where the law condemns, grace forgives through the Lord Jesus Christ. Where the law commands but gives no power, grace commands but does give power through the Holy Spirit who lives and works in us” (p. 93).

I appreciated, too, what Bridges pointed out about the fact that while our acceptance before God is on the basis of grace rather than our “performance,” on the other hand, there are many admonitions about the importance of our testimony before unbelievers and the harm that can be done to the cause of Christ by a poor example in ourselves (pp. 89-90).

More discussion on this chapter is here.

Previous chapters discussed from The Discipline of Grace are:

1) How Good Is Good Enough?
2) The Pharisee and the Tax Collector
3) Preach the Gospel to Yourself
4) We Died to Sin.

More stray thoughts…

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Barbara Harper

I love Monday holidays, but the whole rest of the week I keep having to ask myself, “What day is this?”

I don’t get the fascination with washed-out photos from Instagram. I suppose there are other ways to edit photos there, but the ones I’ve seen are a washed-out look.

I wonder why high schools don’t keep graduation caps and gowns on hand for students to use and return like colleges do. For each student we’ve had to buy them, and then store them in the closet or attic forever after.

Am I the only one who wishes books had a rating system like movies? I hate to be “surprised” by what looks like a good book only to find out it has bad words or sensual scenes in it.

Even though I no longer have children in elementary or high school, I find my schedule is still affected by schools. I go through three school zones to get to my mother-in-law’s place, and there are certain times of day it can take twice as long to get there due to school traffic. On the other hand, it is nicer to go shopping or to restaurants during the day now that schools are back in session.

I’m beginning to think that a great deal of misunderstandings and hurt feelings come not from what other people said or did, but from how we interpreted the words or actions. I think sometimes they’d be surprised at what we thought they meant or why we thought they did what they did.

Patio re-do

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Barbara Harper

One of the house projects I’ve wanted to work on is our back patio. My husband likes to sit on our front porch some times when it is cool:

It is nice there, but I felt like the back area would be more private and I’d be more likely to go there if I wanted to sit outside for a while. Plus I thought it would be nice for everyone to be able to eat out there when he grills.

I didn’t take a “before” picture, but all we had out there was a table my husband found on sale somewhere a while back, a couple of lawn chairs, and the grill.

One of my birthday presents that he just had a chance to assemble this weekend was this swing:

Recently he bought some chairs to go with the table, and he wants to paint the table to match the chairs.

I’d like to replace the green umbrella, too, since it has some holes in it anyway, to match the canopy over the swing.

I didn’t take a “before” photo of this area, either, but the dog’s kennel had been partly on the patio and partly on the grass, so the grassy area was kind of scraggly. We sold the kennel after she died. I had been wanting to plant a hydrangea bush because I loved them at our old house, but there wasn’t a place in the front where one would really fit. Then it occurred to me it could go right here beside the patio and have plenty of room to grow. Jim planted it for me on Saturday.

I think I might put some pansies there, too, and cover the dirt with mulch.

I also took an old planter that had been out by the shed, spray-painted it, and repotted a little rose plant that Jim had gotten me for my birthday. I also replanted a little plant that had been on my kitchen windowsill — I hope it perks up out here.

And so we were able to put the patio to use for a Labor Day picnic yesterday:

It was a little buggy, but Jim defended us with his “magic wand,” the electric flyswatter. 🙂

I didn’t remember til we were half-way through eating that I had a citronella candle. Next time I’ll try to light that before we get out there.

You can see that our back yard is pretty small, and at first I was dismayed by that, but then realized that our stage of life we don’t really need a lot of space back there (plus the guys appreciate having less to mow. 🙂 )

And one thing really nice about the yard is that the back is lined by evergreen trees. Even though the fence of the neighbor behind us is just behind the trees, we still have a feeling of privacy (at our last house, once the leaves fell off in autumn, I could see from my kitchen window straight into the family room of the house behind us, where the man sat watching TV. I’m sure he was usually watching TV rather than our windows, but still, it felt creepy. I put a suncatcher there at eye level in the window, but I still felt like we were spying on each other. So I am VERY glad these trees are evergreens!) So far I haven’t heard these neighbors right back there at the fence unless they are doing yard work.

It was especially nice last night when Jason remarked that it was so peaceful back there. I thought, “Yes! That’s exactly what I was going for!”

I’m glad to have this new area shaped up to minister not only to our family but to guests. I’m looking forward to spending some time on the swing with a good book, too. 🙂

Thanks, hon, for the hard work in putting it together! And thank you, Lord, for these gifts of peaceful spots.