Saturday: By the Grace of God IAm What IAm
WEEK 28
SATURDAY
BY THE GRACE OF GOD I AM WHAT I AM
1 Peter 1:22-23
We come to our last day in the consideration of the mighty positive of the Acts. For the individual it means life is going to be affirmed until it awakes in God’s likeness. It takes humanity as we are—sinful, disrupted—and undertakes to make us as we ought to be—like Christ.
It starts out, not with the disciples discovering and declaring their infinite and essential perfection, but with their humbly receiving the “promise of the Lord”—the Holy Spirit. It doesn’t say to the Jewish leaders guilty of Jesus’ murder: “Realize your infinite and essential perfection, and all your shortcomings and guilt will drop away.” They did say: “Change your hearts and lives. Each of you must be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). That was realistic, anchored to the facts; it also opened infinite possibilities by grace giving them the Spirit to make them into Jesus’ image.
They didn’t say to the lame man at the Beautiful Gate, “Realize your infinite and inherent perfection.” They said, “In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, rise up and walk!” And Peter added: “You Israelites, why are you amazed at this? Why are you staring at us as we made him walk by our own power or piety [and we may add, perfection]? . . . The faith that comes through Jesus gave him complete health right before your eyes” (3:6, 12, 16). The eyes of the disciples and of the people were on Jesus as the source of the miracle. They weren’t seven-day wonders, dispensing miracles because of their divinity or their perfection; they pointed to Jesus.
And Paul didn’t say, “By my realization of my essential and inherent perfection I am what I am”; instead he said, humbly and gratefully: “I am what I am by God’s grace” (1 Cor 15:10). That pointed to grace, not to Paul.
So the positive affirms life mightily even unto perfection, but it is realistic. And it affirms the cosmic process as having a goal and end—the kingdom of God on earth. That breaks the paralysis of thought about the individual and opens infinite possibilities for society—the kingdom of God.
O Lord God, it takes away my breath to know that I am under the process of redemption and that redemption is redeeming me into God’s image. What a redemption! Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I am good only as I surrender to grace and let it operate fully within me.