God's Mighty Men Radical Truth and Grace is our next theme for our GMM Conference – but what does that mean. The GMM Team had an Advance this last week at the Harriman Retreat Center. We brought up this question: What does Radical Truth and Grace mean…. As we all have different Gifts and Personalities – it does mean something different to all of us. But I would like to share some of what we came up with….
Truth: The main idea of truth is that is comes from the Bible – you may get it from Reading the bible – Sermons – a talk with the guys……. But when you hear the truth – what do you do with it… Here comes the Radical part… When you hear truth that requires obedience that is hard to do – we must go forward in what has been required of us.
Grace: This is giving someone what they do not deserve…… Such as: We do not condemn someone for their sins… Forgiving someone for something they did that you that was so egregious that it does not deserve it forgiveness…… Tipping that bad waitress 30% instead of what they deserve…
My Pastor Shawn’s sermon this week was on the 2nd Greatest Commandment to love your neighbor as yourself…. He took this to the area of loving your enemy and what the means: Want to here about Radical Truth and Grace…. Shawn talked about the people that you really do not like or your enemies and what does the Bible tell us to do… Talk about having Radical Truth and Grace written all over it – He really nailed it.
The portion that really stepped on some toes is what does the Bible tell us we should to for our enemies. Here is a shorten list of some really hard items that requires obedience on our part.
- Love our enemies
- Do Good for our enemies
- Pray for our enemies
- Turn the other Check when our enemies strike us.
- If they steal your shirt – give them your coat
- Bless them in your actions
- Lend to them with no expectations of returns
- Do not Condemn them
- Pardon or Forgive them
- Care for them when they are in need.
- Overcome their evil with your love.
He used a quote coming from Zack that was reallllly great: “If GOD loves someone and we do not – then we are in opposition with God”. What a realistic quote to live up to…
If you would like to hear Shawn’s sermon – click here: Sermon
I hope through all of this that you are seeing Radical is not negative but a very positive response that is required of us if we are to be Obedient to what God is calling on us to do.
“Radial Truth and Grace”
Bobbyg
