Faces of GraceAll of us are on a journey of transformation in this lifetime from our old image apart from God into the image of us that He has always had. It’s our shared identity in Christ and our uniquely special identity described in Psalm 139 and Ephesians 2:10. But how does that transformation actually happen? 2 Corinthians 3:18 tells us: “But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” We don’t study our way into transformation, we see our way into it. Our mental knowledge of God’s true self and ours was always meant to be connected to our personal experience of God’s love and grace. It’s His face of grace that transforms what we’ve learned into who we are and are becoming. This is how infants first gain a sense of self. They have no language when they come into this world, but God created us to begin learning that we are loved, valued and welcomed as soon as we arrive. The joy and delight in the faces of our new family were meant to be our mirror! As we nursed and were (hopefully) cared for, God meant for us to gain a sense of who we are: accepted and beloved. God literally created us with “mirror neurons” that essentially help us become what we behold. All of our first learning about who we are occurs without words. It happens through sight, sound and touch from our caretakers. What’s true in the natural is often true in the Spirit. Children of God are meant to look into the unobstructed face of God and see love, acceptance, joy and belonging in His eyes. We learn that with Him, we are in a place of grace where we are uniquely special and valued. This love and acceptance creates a heart-based, grace-based attachment to God. “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Our attachment grows as Jesus treats our weaknesses tenderly, remembering what it was like to be human (Hebrews 4:15). God’s face of grace is our mirror and as He is, so are we in this world (1 John 4:17). As God has been our face of grace, we experience His friends being faces of grace to us and hopefully we become faces of grace to others. It’s one way of being a true “ambassador of Christ.” Faces of Grace is a new addition to “Navigating Grace Spaces” Week 2 Identity focus and Week 6 “Finding Your Focus.” We’ll also explore the impact of not experiencing Faces of Grace and how God lovingly overcomes that obstacle. Our upgraded Navigating Grace Spaces begins March 18th @ 8:00 am PST, 90 minutes for six weeks. Registration closes soon. Click here to register!
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