Southern Living, Better Homes and Gardens, and other ladies’ magazines all purport to offer the secret to gracious living.  Just the right colors, fabrics, and finishes can make your home a place where family and friends can rest and recharge.  Historically, hospitality and gracious living have been synonymous with what it means to be a Southerner.  Those characteristics also describe how we should live as Christians. (I Peter 4:9-10) Yet gracious living is not always as easy as it might sound.  Every day, the trials of life test the limits of our patience and have the potential to deplete our personal reservoir of grace.  The Bible encourages us to be people of grace.  Gracious living means that we overlook wrongs we have suffered.  We don’t walk around with a chip on our shoulder because of the color of our skin, a criticism uttered by a spouse, or a wrong suffered at the hands of a harsh boss.  We endure all and forgive all without keeping a record of wrongs done to us. (I Cor. 13:5)

            So why is it so hard to live graciously?  The answer is simple: we selfishly demand justice.  Perhaps it is because of the nation in which we live, a nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal and deserve to be treated justly.  Yet the Bible has never promised us justice in this life.  Justice is the purview of God alone and we are commanded only to do the best we can in whatever situation we find ourselves. (I Cor. 7:17-24) As our brother Barry Bryson has often reminded us, God is God and we are not.  And because of our sins he owes us nothing, neither are we entitled to an explanation for whatever bad things may happen to us. (Lamentations 3:39) Besides, how many of us really want justice?  Do we really want to stand before God Almighty on Judgment Day and receive what we are due for the sins we have committed?

            We also fail to live graciously because we fail to understand the true nature of sin as well as the true purpose of the church.  We like to categorize and quantify sins, thus, we tend to see some sins as heinous while others are fairly benevolent.  Surely the darkest recesses of Hell are reserved for the Jeffery Dahmers and Ted Bundys of the world, and not for the person who might tell a “little white lie” or occasionally break the speed limit.  Yet to God, a sin is a sin, and the person who tells the “little white lie” is just as guilty in God’s eyes as a murderer.  Some of us have a difficult time wrapping our minds around that Biblical truth.  All sin separates us from God, thus we all stand in need of God’s grace to put us back into a right relationship with him. (Rom. 3:23-24) Because we stand in need of God’s grace, believers repent, confess the name of Christ, submit to baptism, and are added to his church.  And the church we are added to is not a place for the good.  Jesus himself said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17) Again, this is a tough concept for many of us to grasp, but until we do, we will probably not look forward to being in heaven with our brother Jeffery Dahmer, and we may end up missing out on God’s grace altogether.

            Fact is, none of us is “good enough” to go to heaven and without God’s grace purchased by the blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ none of us will ever get there.  Thus, it is incumbent upon us to learn what it means to live as persons of grace.  Gracious living means treating people better than they deserve to be treated.  We do this because that is what God did for us when he sent his Son to earth, so that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom. 5:8) We also do this because we know that “with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Matt. 7:2) Like Melanie Wilkes in Gone with the Wind, we should always try to see the best in those around us.  We should answer kindly when insulted or challenged, and not always feel a need to “get in the last word.”  Rather than leaving a wound to fester, we should reconcile quickly whenever we find that relations between us and a brother or sister are strained. (Matt. 18:15-35) We should humble ourselves and take a genuine interest in what those around us are doing.  The world doesn’t revolve around us and we should come to see others as better than ourselves and worthy of our attention. (Phil. 2:2-5) Above all else, we should be gracious by praying for those with whom we may have differences. (Matt. 5:44-46) Adopting a servant heart, praying for others, thinking of others as more important than ourselves, and accepting the opinions and ideas of others as worthy of our consideration, will ultimately help us realize how little we really know and how much we need Jesus and our brothers and sisters in Christ.  In time, we will find our greatest satisfaction and deepest joy in service to others, and truly come to understand what it means to enjoy gracious living.