There’s a scripture that highlights pursuing peace with all men. (Hebrews 12:14) It speaks about making a peaceful life something that you have to relentlessly pursue in order to make way to holiness… yet I’ve probably never heard of the pursuit of grace.

This idea of extending grace comes from, I think, an internal battle of trying to not take offense or to take it extremely personal when someone hurts you or you simply cannot understand why they do what they do. To me, it’s the concept that with God’s help we can empathically allow ourselves to see the root of a problem within a person instead of constantly confronting the fruit of a problem with a person.

Earlier today I had a conversation about the extension of grace, further dissecting the premise that the “gifting of grace” to others is based on a frustration of dealing with trying people. So, a friend and I created a catch phrase saying: “Grace I extend to you ON TODAY!” We chuckled about it and it became our private “religious” shade.

But do we really believe that grace is some gift that we feel like we “have the right/power” to gift to others? Or is grace something that we should view as a gift that we’ve received therein we have the privilege of gifting it to other people?

Perspective.

I think grace is simply something that we don’t think about until we need it. I recently needed to extend some grace and mercy to my own self to make it through a moment.

Oddly enough, It humbled me because instantaneously I became THAT person. The person who had hurt someone, the person who didn’t want to accept responsibility, and the person who was just WRONG. And in order to restore a relationship, I needed someone to extend grace to me. Grace was what I needed in order to make it past the error of my own ways. From that day on, as a recipient of grace, I made it my goal to relentlessly extend grace to those like myself who “didn’t deserve” it.

So extend grace today. Pursue it. Run after it. And when you reach it, give it away. Give it to the people who don’t deserve it. The people who lie to you, the people who manipulate you, the people who hurt you, the people who’ve lied on you and/or intentionally deceived you.

Forgive them. Let it go.

Extend grace today and forever more.

1 Corinthians 6:11 (ESV)

11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.