by Jacob Ninan
(In an age where the concept of grace is grossly misunderstood and misinterpreted, Mr. Jacob Ninan emphasises that the true meaning of grace is evident only when seen through the lens of accountability.)
People generally think about grace as an undeserved favour from God like students who are given ‘grace marks’ to help them to pass an exam. When we become aware of how far we are from God’s standards, we all like to receive grace from Him.
Now, think of two men. The first one is struggling to do everything possible to be right with God and is constantly disturbed to find that it does not seem to be possible. Then imagine his joy when he hears that God is willing to accept him by grace! The second man is really only interested in doing what he likes, and he thinks of God as someone who always seems to restrict him. He too is glad to hear of grace, because now he thinks, God’s grace will cover whatever he does! Isn’t it important for us, not just to hear about grace, but to understand it right?
The first man is aware of how unacceptable he must be to God, and for him, grace is his only hope. For the second man, grace is an easy way out. How we see ourselves in relationship to God will shape our understanding of the grace God offers. Then that will shape how we live. If we see ourselves as hopeless without the grace of God, gratitude will fill our hearts when we receive it from God, and we will be eager to be pleasing to God. The Bible says "..the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf” (II Cor 5:14,15).
Unfortunately, due to a watered-down preaching of the Gospel nowadays, where Lord Jesus is presented as Someone waiting to come to our help, solve all our problems, give us blessing after blessing and finally take us to heaven, people do not seem to understand the concept of true grace in their lives. They do not see themselves as sinners in the sight of God or their need for grace, and they do not repent from their sins and turn to God to receive this grace.
Hebrews 4:16 says, "…let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." This tells us about the two parts of grace, the one that provides us forgiveness for our sins, and the other that helps us in our times of need. God is able to forgive us in spite of His justice demanding our punishment, because His Son Jesus has taken our punishment instead of us. That forgiveness is by grace, the unmerited favour from God.
Grace is also available to us now to help us to receive our salvation in full, as God works to teach us to walk in His ways following the Lord Jesus and to be transformed to become more and more like Him. Isn’t that our biggest need now? God says emphatically that while He is empowering us inside, it is our responsibility to live accordingly making use of this help. Apostle Paul says, …work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure (Phil 2:12,13).
But earthly minded people who are only looking for help from God to live a good life on earth are not looking for this kind of grace. Some see grace as a covering for our lives which protects us from the judgment of God, and then believe that once they have come under grace, God overlooks their failures, mistakes, human weaknesses, etc. They do not understand that the mission of Lord Jesus on earth was to save us from our sins as prophesied in Mathew, "…she will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins" (Mt 1:21). Grace is given not only to forgive us and save us from the guilt of sin and its punishment, but also to save us from the power of sin in our daily life and to make us like Lord Jesus.
Another reason grace is misunderstood sometimes is because of a superficial reading of verses like this: "…Moses said to the people, ‘Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever. The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent’" (Exod 14:13,14).
Some people think that after we pray and commit things to the Lord, we need to do nothing else from our side. Some even think that taking responsibility for doing things from our side will be to live under the Law, and that if we are under grace, we must allow God to do everything for us. No!
For us, ‘standing still’ is placing our worries and cares upon the Lord and trusting Him to take care of us. But then we are not to be passive. We need to do whatever He tells us to do every day of our life if we want to be pleasing to Him. At the Red Sea, Israel had to only stand and watch what the Lord did, but at Jericho, they had to walk around the city seven times, and afterwards, they had to go into battle to take the land from the Canaanites!
God equips us and then we must behave as responsible people doing what we have to do, following the instructions of the Lord. As we can see from the example of Israel, God expects us to take greater responsibility as we gain more experience with Him and grow to become mature.
"…each one of us will give an account of himself to God" (Rom 14:12), so, after God works in us and gives us what we need to be able to take action at different times – wisdom, strength, direction, etc., He expects us to do what we have to do. The responsibility for doing them is ours, and it is thus that we are accountable to God. We are ‘stewards’ to whom God has entrusted different resources and responsibilities, and it is required for stewards to give an account to the Master for what they have done, as we see from the several parables of Lord Jesus. Our reward for faithfulness may not always be seen here in this life, but certainly we can enjoy them in the life to come.
God has also placed over us earthly masters, and being faithful in carrying out our responsibilities towards them is certainly a part of being faithful to God. Lord Jesus clarified that if we are not faithful in dealing with earthly responsibilities, we are simply not faithful people. He said, "He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much" (Lk 16:10). We will be fooling ourselves if we separate the spiritual and ‘secular’ parts of our life, and give importance only to Bible study, prayer, church activities, etc., thinking that carelessness in our earthly affairs is not a serious matter. So, let us measure our faithfulness by looking at how we deal with our earthly responsibilities.
As we all know, one of the common temptations in the workplace is to focus on impressing the people who count for our career growth, rather than on making sure that whatever we do is characterised by faithfulness. One Bible translation refers to this as ‘eyeservice’. It says, "Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God" (Col 3:22). The temptation is to do right when we are watched by others, and in secret, indulge in all kinds of questionable activities. This is not being accountable either to God or to man!
Many Christians seem to be content to live a life that is acceptable to the society, doing what everyone else does and avoiding what is obviously wrong. The laws of the land and the rules of society all are concerned with what we do externally, which other people can see. That was the extent of the Old Testament laws which were also the national laws for Israel. Under such laws, one who physically committed adultery could be punished, but another one who indulged secretly in lust could not be punished till he committed a physical act.
But when Lord Jesus came announcing the new covenant, He stated what God really wants from us. He took us to the higher level of being faithful in our minds, going above and beyond physical behaviour. He said, "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Mt 5:27, 28).
Now we can understand what accountability to God really involves. We cannot live at that level of accountability unless we are willing to let God look deep into the recesses of our hearts and minds and question even our motives and intentions. We must give in to the work of the word of God which is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Heb 4:12).
Complete honesty and openness with God in our personal life is where faithfulness gets cultivated. Remember, God already knows all about us, including our thoughts and intentions. There is nothing hidden from His sight, and there is no way we can fool Him or justify ourselves before Him.
This is a big question that we Christians must settle once for all in our minds: are we going to be content with being an acceptable member of the society or the church, or do we want to be truly pleasing to God in all things? This distinction is to be exercised in the depths of our minds, usually away from the observation of people.
As a result of being away from the eyes of people, we may not immediately feel any consequences when we compromise on the standards of God. “Doing what everybody does” becomes our guideline. Pilfering, stealing office time, using office resources freely and gossiping are examples of ‘what everybody does’. If we are only interested in having a good name before people, we can come down from being accountable to God to being only accountable to people. Then we need to be careful only about what we say and do in front of people and the impression we leave behind, while crooked planning and scheming may be going on inside our minds.
But as God warns us, we cannot get away with it forever: "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap" (Gal 6:7). The price we pay will be the stunting of our spiritual growth. And we cannot hide things from people too indefinitely.
On the other hand, there is a challenge that may come from people when we seek to be faithful to God in everything. Some people become envious of the good name we receive from others, and try to malign us or place hindrances in our progress. Some compromising Christians who get pricked in their conscience when they observe our faithfulness in little things will call us legalistic. They think being faithful is somewhat similar to trying to earn God’s favour, and they expect that being under grace liberates them from having to be under any rule.
But knowing that our Master to whom we will give account sees everything that goes on even inside our hearts and knows the true picture gives us boldness and confidence. His favour is not always seen in earthly progress, and sometimes it even seems to work against us in a secular society. But godliness is profitable both for this life and the life to come!
Society is becoming more and more loose in all areas and even with gender boundaries, and there is great pressure on everyone to accept deviant behaviours in others. If we don’t, we are under threat of being called out as regressive people. Many extramarital affairs develop in the workplace, and accountability to God and our spouse will be needed to preserve us from getting entangled. Craving for position, power and wealth can lead us to walk into devious ways if we are not careful.
God’s word says, "…we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad" (II Cor 5:10). This is the account each of us has to give. If we understand true grace, we will live every day keeping this fact before our eyes. Even amid the busy activities of this life, let us remember that this life is far too short to give all our attention to and be occupied with when compared to eternity!
- Published in The Christian Manager, August-September 2024