Divine Grace Gone Putrid

The following is an email that John Bueno, the Executive Director with the Assemblies of God, sent to missionaries. I am putting it on my blog because what he has to say is very true and I don't want to forget it. May God help us be dispensers of grace, not judgment and hypocrisy.

Missive
January 2010


As this new year begins, I am drawn to a passage in a work written by
Helmut Thielicke. Painting a vivid word picture, he writes:

"The sulfurous stench of hell is as nothing compared with the evil odor
emitted by divine grace gone putrid. The grace of God actually can be
corrupted by spiritual vanity."
I have often observed this phenomenon as people, in the name of
holiness, actually disgrace the greatest gift God has for His children.
They go around sanctimoniously, living out their own laws and requiring
others to do the same. A judgmental spirit creeps in, compelling us to
correct our brothers and sisters or at least judge them in our hearts
regarding their walk with God.

While each of us has a responsibility to guide and direct our fellow
travelers in some of the issues of life, it isn't our responsibility to
judge them. In doing so we forget the grace that God gives all of us.

I pray that spiritual vanity will not diminish the purity and peace that
comes only through Him. All of us must come under the umbrella of His
grace. When we move out from that canopy and travel in the judgmental
spirit of our own understanding of righteousness, we are in dangerous
territory. May we never experience, as Thielicke describes, "the evil
odor of divine grace gone putrid."


L. John Bueno
Executive Director
AGWM