Restoration is better than 'acceptance' alone...
Friday, January 15, 2010 at 9:43AM 
A Mountain Search and Rescue unit gets a call that a climber has fallen on Mt. Hood, near Portland Oregon. The climber's pick axe failed to grab when he attempted to lodge it into a unstable pocket of ice. There was nothing to stop his fall. Other climbers found the body, mangled and barely alive, one-thousand feet down from where he started to slide.
When the mountain rescue unit got there, multiple bones were shattered, including the spine, and the climber was bleeding from his ears and nose. Rescue workers knelt near the bleeding body and spoke reassuringly to it: "We accept you."
And then they did nothing else. To comfort the climber, they again offered, "We accept you. You are loved and safe now." But nothing else was done - no attempt to discern the man's vitals or assess his awareness of surroundings. No attempt to stabilize and transport the body.
Only, "You are loved and accepted. It's o.k. now."
..................................................................................................
O.k., so I made up the story to demonstrate something. It is not enough for Christians to see themselves as merely loved and accepted by God's grace. That's a beautiful thing; but it won't restore a person or give them back the capacity to live well -- There was great damage that needed healing.
God is smarter than that. He restores us by equipping us with a new and noble heart so that we can relate well, live well, and enjoy this new grace we've been given. Anything less would be as cruel as the clearly shallow and insufficient 'hope' the mountain rescue unit offered the dying climber.
What have you been taught about 'grace' and 'acceptance.' Was it enough?
acceptance, grace, heart, restoration in grace, new heart, noble heart, transformation 
