Grace

What is grace? According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “grace is favour, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life” (CCC 1996). It is “a participation in the life of God” and “introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life” (CCC 1997). For me, grace is simply this: an act of kindness, undeserved but freely given.

While I have no qualms with what the Bible wrote about grace, there was one passage written by St Paul in his letter to the Romans that had me stumped for a while. The passage, Romans 5:20-6:4 was as follows:

“Law came in, to increase the trespass; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace might also reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

“What shall we say then? Are we to continue to sin so that grace may abound? By no means! How can we, who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

Reading this, there was a time I used to think: because of sin, we are saved then by grace. Through sin, grace shined. And the more we sinned, the more grace shined; the greater the sin, the greater the grace. Yet there seemed to be a problem with St Paul’s words between the end of chapter 5 and the beginning of chapter 6 mentioned above. Taking Romans 5:20, those who have greatly sinned are forgiven by grace. Then Romans 6:1-4 comes in, commanding us not to sin. Yet, what if the person continued and persevered in that sin? Then Romans 5:20 repeats. What then, of God’s law? Will this person really come to inherit the Kingdom?

Rather of inserting my long-winded paragraph filling explanations, I would like instead to relate an experience I went through.

Not too long ago I was surfing the net and came across some websites for pornography. Now I cannot remember the last time I intentionally logged on to an explicit pornographic website (pornographic adverts that inevitably made their way in “normal” sites I surf does not count; I am usually repulsed and ignore them). For years I stopped it due to personal general disgust, the teaching of the Church, and (more so) because of Matthew 5:28.

For some reason however, the compulsion that day got the better of me; and though I knew the act to be wrong, I finally succumbed to searching and watching videos of people getting it on.

At the height of my climax, on sudden impulse I sang a verse from the band For All Eternity’s song, Souls.

Father, Father take my hand. Here I am in awe I stand.

Related or not, that line managed to penetrate me midway through ecstasy and shut close my web browser. The feeling that followed soon after was a deep wave of guilt on what I had done. I knew that if I prayed God will forgive me and wipe me clean from my sin. Yet the thought of Him looking at me with love when I deserved condemnation was excruciatingly painful. Imagine hitting your parent in the face for witnessing a crime you tried to hide on your part, and seeing him/her smile sadly. That was how I felt.

After that incident I vowed to try my hardest not to commit that sin again, with the help of the Spirit. Consequently, this led me to remove a morally twisted program I downloaded and kept hidden amongst my folders. So far, this commitment is holding up.  

This, I believe, is how it will turn out for those who truly live in grace, and gives meaning and my answer to Romans 5:20-6:4.

Hello, I swear I won't be too long

Hello, I promise I'll be real strong

Wait up, I just wanna tell you

Hold up, why are you still here?

I've been dirtier than you wanna know

I've left earlier than you'll ever know

Why do you wanna be all listening to me?
Why do you spread your arms and tell me I'm free?
Why do you wanna be in my life?
In my life?

I've been dirtier than you wanna know

I've left earlier than you'll ever know

Jesus, Jesus

There's something about Your Name

Master, Saviour, Jesus

I've been dirtier than you wanna know

I've left earlier than you'll ever know

Jesus

Jesus

The Almost, Dirty and Left Out.

RFG always.