When you think about it, there is really no such thing as Grace alone without being Grace Turned Outward. I don’t think you can have it. It’s not like two stages of grace: you get one, and then sometime later, you get the other like some kind of “:second blessing.” When you receive Grace, it forever changes the playing field. It removes the competition. It erases “us” and “them” (there is just “us” — all of us). It’s basically game over on comparison, measurement and judgment.
It’s like you get a new set of eyes. It’s impossible to look down with these eyes. You can only look across and up. That’s because there is no one lower than you. You’ve bottomed out, and it’s a great relief. You find yourself embracing and being embraced by the rest of humanity, and it feels good.
If there is someone lower than you, if there is someone you can compare yourself to and come off better than, or if there is still the need to even engage in this kind of comparison, then whatever it was you thought you got, it wasn’t Grace. It was a pseudo-grace, or a fabricated grace, or a pop-grace, but it wasn’t Grace. It was grace with too much of me in it. Grace is all God. It has nothing of me.
In some Christian circles, Grace is sort of fashionable. It’s the new theology. There are a lot of people talking about Grace today, but I’m not sure they are all talking about the same thing.
I can’t tell who has it and who doesn’t or I would be violating the very thing I’m talking about, but I know it exists. I can’t judge anyone else’s heart; I just know my own well enough to know you can do this (because I have). You can fake it. I am an expert in the nuances of Pharisaism, and I know a Pharisee can possess all kinds of spiritual knowledge and mimic all kinds of spiritual activity.
But the real deal is Grace Turned Outward. It is the heart of the Catch Ministry and what colors all we do here. It is how you know you have received Grace because you can’t receive Grace without giving it away. Grace Turned Outward is the evidence of Grace. It is what indicates that you have received Grace in the first place. You just can’t keep Grace to yourself; you have to give it away.
John Fischer The Catch 
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!
God spoke this to me while preparing for this Sunday’s communion for our church service:
As believers, God didn’t tell us to ‘clean ourselves up before believing in his Son’, God loved us IN our brokenness—He loved us at our worst—When we least deserved it and with no strings attached. God didn’t tell us to ‘give up our lusts, our addictions, our sexual immorality, our lying, our hated, our idols, or even our pride, control, or power. HE. LOVED. US. IN. IT!
As we take the bread and wine, we are reminded of the depth, width, length, and height of Christ’s love for us, he became sin for us, cleaning our slate of past, present and future sins. We aren’t sinless, but Christ is. So, in essence, the Gospel isn’t just for unbelievers that need to be saved, but it’s a vital gift from God that enables us to deal with the ongoing activity of sin in our lives. We love one another as He loves us by our actions and attitudes being an embodiment of His grace and love, to those around us that are just as needy as we are.
Let us pray— Jesus, you said, “whoever has been forgiven little loves little. We surely have been forgiven MUCH! May we choose to be an embodiment of grace and love to those around us, handing back and forth, the same grace and love that you extend to us, so that people will see our love for one another and know that we are Your disciples.
In your precious name, Amen.
Thank you for sharing this. A beautiful prayer.
Love to add an Amen
“You just can’t keep Grace to yourself; you have to give it away.” Amen!