Life-spark: God offers second chances, fresh shots at life. (John 1:12-16)
I admit it. I’ve been known to take a ‘mulligan’ while golfing. A mulligan is a second chance – a do over. And although a mulligan represents ‘cheap grace’ to scratch golfers, there is a mulligan mentioned in the Bible that wasn’t cheap at all.
Jesus came into time and space from heaven: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14, NIV)
The Apostle John said that he and some fellow disciples saw the glory of God in Jesus. God’s glory is His brilliant aliveness. Irenaeus, the early church father, said it this way: “The glory of God is a man fully alive.” Jesus became one of us so that we could become fully alive in Him.
Jesus came to give His life so He could offer you and me a mulligan – a fresh shot at life. Anyone who believes He is who He says He is (Jesus called Himself “the Life”) and receives His gift of deep, unending aliveness, is born into His eternally alive family.
“Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God …” (John 1:12, NIV”) I like the way Eugene Peterson paraphrases this in the Message version: “He made them to be their true selves, their child-of-God selves.”
‘Reborn’ people get a fresh chance to become the person God had in mind when He shaped them in their mother’s wombs. Being alive is being the true me, the child-of-God me. By grace, I get another shot at being fully alive when my prior attempt goes out of bounds. It’s undeserved favor. It’s grace. But it’s not cheap grace. Truth is, us getting a new life cost Him His life.
“From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.” (John 1:16, NIV)
Life-action: Think of one time God gave you a mulligan. Why not thank Him again?