Grace is a Chaser

Purity. We cannot make ourselves pure. In fact, no one is pure. Except...

Rom 3:21-24
"But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."

Mark 7:15
Nothing outside a man can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him 'unclean.'

LIkewise, nothing going into a man can make him clean, either. There is nothing a man can do to make himself pure. The only thing we can do, which is quite enough, is to have faith that God, in his grace, has made us pure.

And, as Paul wrote to Titus, those that have no faith, not only cannot do anything to make themselves pure, everything they do, even what would be considered good by moral standards, is corrupted and no good.

This changes everything. The best work by the worst person is no good at all. The worst work by a good person, that is, one who has been declared good by God, is a good work. Someone who is declared good is motivated entirely differently than they were before they were declared good.

God won't let a declared good man go down the path of disobedience without chasing him and catching him. Jonah. God said, "Go up to Nineveh." Jonah ran down. He ran down to Joppa. Down to the pier. Down into the hold of the boat.

God chased him and caught him. So, Jonah thought suicide would be the best response so he had the sailors throw him down into the water. This is the ultimate in cowardly copouts. Rather than face the wrong deed and make it good, quit. God chased him into the water and wouldn't let quit.

Rather than allow him to drown, God had the big fish swallow him. And, literally, in the belly of the fish Jonah had his "come-to-Jesus" meeting.

Jonah, in his repentance, said this, "Those who cling to worthless idols
forfeit the grace that could be theirs." (2:8)

He realized that unbelievers, who cling to idols are never chased down by those idols the way God chased him. He did not deserve to chased. In his mind he deserved to be let go and die. Not only did God see to it that he lived, he lived the abundant life that God offers all who believe.

Jonah got another chance. Grace. Followers of Jesus, those who believe, those who have been made pure by God who do bone-headed things that hurt people are chased down by God and given another chance. We get the chance to repent, atone and restore.

As leaders we need to do all that we can to help people recognize that they have been caught by God and are given another chance to do things right. Remember, their rightness or wrongness does not make them pure. They already are.

We are not God. We cannot become the issue. We must direct people to deal with the issue as God convicts them. Still, they are pure because God made them pure. Their actions, though questionable, are all part of the process God takes us through to grow us up.

Since purity is a declaration of God it changes how we view the actions of of brothers in Christ. Most who are running would get to point where they would rather be let go. But they won't be. The Holy Spirit is a chaser. He might use one of us in the process, but make no mistake, God is the chaser.

Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit that grace that could be theirs. Thank God that grace is a chaser. He will never let us go.