{"id":6609,"date":"2010-08-11T00:07:49","date_gmt":"2010-08-11T00:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2010\/08\/miracles-of-morphing-5.html"},"modified":"2010-08-11T00:07:49","modified_gmt":"2010-08-11T00:07:49","slug":"miracles-of-morphing-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/08\/miracles-of-morphing-5.html","title":{"rendered":"Miracles of Morphing 5"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"Morphimage.jpg\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Grace overwhelms<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

            First,
\ngrace overwhelms injustice. Grace sizes things up with laser-beam accuracy.
\nGrace diagnoses you and me as “sinners” in that you and I have each
\ncommitted scads of injustices, some of them intentionally and some of them not.
\nIt sees us as “unjust” and, instead of sending us into the frying pant
\nto get scorched, grace sees through us to what God wants us to be and forgives.
\nGrace scans us completely and it sees the dreams we tell others we believe in
\nand it sees how fall short we fall of our own dreams. Grace looks us over, the
\nway teenagers look one another over, and it says “you are not what you
\nthink you are and not what you claim you are and not as good as you
\nthink.” But instead of walking away, grace walks up to us, hugs us, and
\nsays “Come with me to Jesus and you will find a life made new. Come to me
\nbecause I will wipe away those injustices and that lack of commitment and that
\nfailing to realize your dreams and that pretense.”<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

            The
\nreally good news about grace is that our sin, our injustices, all are failings
\nto accomplish what we think we should accomplish, is no match for what grace
\ncan do. We keep adding to our pile of injustices, but grace keeps pace and then
\nsome. I love what the apostle Paul said: “But where sin increased, grace
\nincreased all the more” (Rom 5:20).  This English translation
\ndoesn’t quite do it for me because Paul uses two words here: sin pleonazes<\/i> (that’s my own made-up
\nword based on the Greek word) but grace hyper-perisizes<\/i> (I made this one up too). Another way of
\nputting this is that sin multiplies but grace swarms and overwhelms.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

            I
\nhave a friend who played professional golf for a living. He’s got a cool name:
\nKermit Zarley. We’ve played golf a few times and I’m not bad, but I’m no match
\nfor the pro. I’ve beaten him fair and square on about five holes in all our times
\nof playing together (you don’t need to know the number of holes we’ve played
\ntogether).  On our second time playing golf together I was itching
\nfinally to take one hole from him. We were on a par three and I hit the green –
\nabout 30 feet from the hole and then I drained the putt. I danced a little jig
\nand trumpeted to Kermit that he had his work cut out for him now.  He
\ndid. He had what is called a double-breaker – his putt would first start
\ncurving one direction and then it would curve the other direction. When I
\ndanced my little jig and uttered my little dare, something happened in the
\nZar-Man’s eyes and I knew he meant business. You guessed it. That putt broke
\none direction and then another and then “plop!” the ball went into
\nthe cup. Kermit looked at me, did his little jig and let me know I was no match
\nfor him. And I’m not. Not even close. Hole after hole has proven it. Sometimes
\nI have this little idea that I might beat him on the hole and then he realizes
\nI’m gaming up and the next thing he pulls it off and I lose. Every time.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

            Sin
\nand grace are in the same game. No matter how good sin’s skills, grace wins
\nevery time. Every time. Grace overwhelms sin. Completely overwhelms sin every
\ntime.  The gospel is the good news that God can forgive us because
\nGod’s grace overwhelms sin every time. Most people call this
\n“forgiveness” but “overwhelming” says even more. We are
\nforgiven of our injustices and our sins because grace just overwhelms the
\nstuff.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grace overwhelms             First, grace overwhelms injustice. Grace sizes things up with laser-beam accuracy. Grace diagnoses you and me as “sinners” in that you and I have each committed scads of injustices, some of them intentionally and some of them not. It sees us as “unjust” and, instead of sending us into the frying pant to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gospel"],"yoast_head":"\nMiracles of Morphing 5 - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/08\/miracles-of-morphing-5.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Miracles of Morphing 5 - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Grace overwhelms             First, grace overwhelms injustice. 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It sees us as “unjust” and, instead of sending us into the frying pant to…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/08\/miracles-of-morphing-5.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-08-11T00:07:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/07\/Morphimage-thumb-333x96-16716.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Miracles of Morphing 5 - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/08\/miracles-of-morphing-5.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Miracles of Morphing 5 - Jesus Creed","og_description":"Grace overwhelms             First, grace overwhelms injustice. 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