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These experiences may have had a considerable
impact on those who experienced them, but they generally have nothing to do with the blog title, "saving grace" from a Christian perspective. This term and "born again" are thrown around very superficially and ignorantly today.

This term, saviing grace, applies to the Christian concept of being redeemed by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Grace is from the Greek, "charis," meaning gift; that is, God's saving power to the sinner is not earned by good works of any sort, but purely by the gift of redemption through faith in Christ's atonement. That's why grace is so AMAZING.

It is amazing not merely because God suffered pain and death, spiritually and physcially, for man, in and through Jesus the Son, but because man is so utterly sinful and rebellious and God-hating (speaking generally). But God's love (John 3:16) prevailed on the cross and extended mercy and forgiveness to all who trust in Him.

At the moment of inner transformation, the sinner is cleared of all guilt and culpability for his sins, given a clean and liberated soul, filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit, and a true and dynamic relationship with God. It is not mere intellectual assent, but a truly personal and tangible release.

Overwhelming moments, such as those noted in the series qutoes, may profoundedly affect people, but they are not "saving grace." Real saving grace is not the result of happenstance or some vague "higher power," but of a genuine encounter with the living God through the Gospel messge of redemption. Everything else, religous or otherwise, is incapable of saving the soul because they have no legitimate atonement to offer to take care of man's real existential dilemma - sin. That is accomplished only through the cross. Romans 3. 19-26 explains grace very clearly:

19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.
20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—
22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction:
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
24 and are justified by his grace as a gift,through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Gack, Nikos, take the stick out before your hurt yourself.

It's the name of a tv show and the lead character's name is " Grace"- a relatively popular name for girls.
Hey, there have been other shows with the name " Grace" in the title- one had Brett Butler as the lead, another was on ABC Family Channel and was about a little EEK! - Whore of Babylon alert for you , Nikos- Catholic girl and her best friend- a Jewish girl- living in NC.

"It's the name of a tv show and the lead character's name is 'Grace'"

I KNOW that, Alice. But there were several personal crisis events in the piece that used the TV show name as a backdrop to imply that they were a source of grace. I think the intent of the artilce was quite clear.

My point was simply that those experiences, as powerful as they may have been to those who had them, were devoid of Christian, atonement-related grace; and that to imply otherwise is to detract from the term. You may agree or disagree, but that's my take.

Sorry if talking about biblical grace hits a nerve. And your first-liner is unworthy of decent debate - or decent anything!

Nikos, you really have a stick up there. You must- you are the most humorless person I've encountered on the ' net in years. Did you lose your ability to smile when you wuz 'borned-agin' and can only be happy when spouting Bible verses to others?
IT'S A TV SHOW.
Years ago there was a show called " Queen for a Day."
The winner really DIDN'T get to be a monarch reigning over the US for 24 hours.
" Hill Street Blues"? The actors weren't Smurfs.
" Jericho"? Nobody on the set's being treated for radiation exposure.

Are you, Nikos, " smarter than a Fifth-Grader" when it comes to living in the world outside your church? No, never mind. On that show, you'd be out at the first-grade-level "Civics" question.

For the second time, and hopefully the last. I am well aware that Saving Grace is a TV show, but you apparently do not understand my take off from it. I was not saying that the little vignettes were claiming a spiritual salvation in and of themselves; I simply used the idea of "saving grace" to present the biblical view of the term. Me thinks thou dost protest too much.

Talk about protesting too much- Nikos, your little yap-fest on " grace" in the bible took the prize.

Tell me, do you use the common expression " by the way" or do you take exception to it and consider it swearing?

alice you really put this one to the test !.....
"If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men."............. you are immature and hostile toward God and His Christ and every saint. remember we are all accountable for every word we speak !

nikos i rather enjoy and appreciate your 'yap-fest' as alice calls it........
"But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.(According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day.".......

Israel is not the only one to slumber and are deaf and blind !!

Well, its not as if anyone takes Alice seriously anyway, Buzz. She's one of those rabid bloggers that takes a personal satisfaction in using the most inflammatory language she can get away with. I'm still wondering why Alice is here bashing religious posts on a religion blog? If the conversations are too religious or serious, go elsewhere. This wasn't a dialogue on the TV show, but a religious dialogue on the title and the situation of the TV show.

As for removing elongated objects from bodily orifices, Alice should follow the biblical principal of tending to her own issues first before offering advice to others.

Let me be the first person to actually address the subject of the letter presented since no one else seems capable or willing to do so. Fifteen years ago, my life changing experience came to me one morning after waking up in a mental hospital after a suicide attempt the day before. I had been a heavy drinker for quite a long time as a way to escape the prison of myself. The truth of the matter was I couldn't stand being me. I didn't know how to live inside my own skin. I had a warped view of myself and my place in the world and I had no clue as to live period. That particular morning I saw for the first time exactly what my situation really was and it scared the hell out of me. I knew without a doubt I would wind up dead by my own hand if I didn't get the help I knew I needed. My life since that day has not been the same and I'm not the same person now that I was before. And it had nothing to do with religion or god either. It was realizing I was sick and needed help.

rs,
it's good to hear you sought the help you desperately needed. whoever these people were who helped you, apparently had some interest in your well being.what you've done to receive help for your body and mind is really no different than those who go to the Creator seeking help for their body, soul and spirit. just as you received the needed assistance from your human counter part- so do those who honestly seeks God receive His help. i applaud those professionals who assist others in recovering sanity, security and peace. these are only temporal fixes to a larger issue.....sin.....now i know that means nothing to you....but nontheless sin is the underlying cause of all illness. we will never escape the consequence of sin in this body but we can escape the penalty of sin (i.e.eternal death) by accepting the resurrected Christ and His atoning blood.
i can find it in my heart to be happy for you, that someone cared enough about you to help put your life back together - why can't you feel the same towards me, that God has put my life back together ?

The closest I've ever been to "hitting rock bottom" in life was getting fired from a job I hated. I had a 9-month old baby and a wife to support, and no prospects for getting a job that was even as pitiful as the one I had just lost.

Didn't really change my life -- just gave me a hard lesson in how to hold on to a job.

I was a lost, wandering, grass loving, Hari Krishna chanting, Om humming, miserable sinner. The deliverance and inner trnsformation that occured when Messiah was revealed to me seemed nothing short of miraculous - from misery to exuberant joy, from dakrness to light eternal, from a slave of sin to a servant of the Most High. And in 35 years it hasn't lost any of its glory or wonder. Thank you, Lord. Hallelujah, what a Savior!

Grace is so much more than a TV show or a life turn around, as important as that can be. God offers sinners "joy unspeakable and full of glory" and "the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." Jesus siad it all: "I have come that they might have LIFE, and that more abundantly." Grace means its a gift, not earned or deserved, given freely to those with repentant, child-like faith. Receive the gift!

eric technically that experience did make a 'change' in your life....it seems that you replaced (changed) old thought processes with some new thought processes, which would enable to do things differently in the future. think about it.....if you had NOT changed, you possibly would have been stuck in a endless cycle of hiring and firing.
change is kind of like repent..... you decide to take another direction. that is why it's important to repent when we fall into sin....we must change our course. i've come to realize that if left to my own devices, i would and will make the wrong choices(usually for narcisistic reasons)..... if i don't stay connected to Gods word and the Holy Spirit and His leadings, i make a mess of things.
eric you are fortune (perhaps unfortunate) to never
reached a point in your life where you felt utterly lost and hopeless (often this is where we meet God and His grace). i've been there on several occassions.....once trying to commit suicide....another plotting to kill my brother and his family....and another trying to find a gun to go after my estranged wife and her boyfriend......i feel like i am qualified to speak of despair. and it is ONLY by Gods grace that i am here today to share those horror stories.....nothing else explains how i was released from that darkness and transformed into this person you see today (not to say that i am yet perfected)....i cerainly had no capacity within me to make that happen. somehow God has been able to turn what was once hate in my life....into a sort of compassion for others who suffer like i did. i can have compassion on you, rs, fn & alice because i understand a little about your loathing for God and His people - and i do have pity on your suffering.
i have a more excellent tool at my disposal than you all - i have prayer. i can petition our creator for change in your life ...while you can only 'wish' for change in mine. while you 'wish' that i would deny my Savior and join in your godless endeavors, i will petition my God for His mercy and justice to prevail in all of our lives, Amen!

"eric technically that experience did make a 'change' in your life....it seems that you replaced (changed) old thought processes with some new thought processes, which would enable to do things differently in the future."

Well, if you want to really get technical, ALL experiences to that to one degree or another. But I think Nancy was looking more for "watershed" type events. My life has few if any events where a complete turnaround in my life's path came about. I have no hairpin turns in my life so far...

I think that was one of the most disappointing aspects of my life when I was a Christian. I didn't transform from "a grass loving, Hari Krishna chanting, Om humming, miserable sinner," as Nikos claims to have done. I was a peaceable, loving member of a stable family before I believed, and I was pretty much the same after -- only I started going to church and wishing I had been more of a jerk before, so I could impress people with the improvement in my life.

Oh well....

"while you can only 'wish' for change in mine. while you 'wish' that i would deny my Savior and join in your godless endeavors"

Buz, you dishonor me. I have no wish for you to do anything with your religion that you don't want to do. I understand how important any person's religion is to him/her... and I understand WHY it's important.

The only things I "wish" for is for people of all religions to live in peace with those of us who don't believe... and to perhaps listen to what others say on religious matters with a little more civility.

" wishing I had been more of a jerk before, so I could impress people with the improvement in my life.".................

eric there was a time when i thought you were a deeper thinker, but statement like that shows just how much you've missed the Spirit of Christ and that no real conversion ever happened in your life. so you've boiled it down to believing that Christians must have some kind of story to impress the world - that one must have been a jerk in his/her unregenerate state. saul (i.e.paul) has quite a startling conversion experience, while other apostles apparently had much less of a one time event experience. that is todays problem eric, too many people wishing to come to Christ are 'expecting' some mountain moving experience and without that, they feel robbed or even worse they feel nothing has transpired....salvation has NOTHING to do with what you FEEL but has everything to do with what Jesus accomplished @ calvary. being subject to our emotions is destined to make us fail (in that respect). so some who experience salvation do indeed have a moving experience while others simply believe and are saved. my personal experience was moving and life changing but i am no more or less saved than the next person who receives Christ.

"Buz, you dishonor me."........ i did not intend to do so. i was under the impression that you wished more people were like yourself, just as i pray that more people like myself would find salvation. that is what i meant to convey.
neither did i intend to be uncivil.....if you perceived my post as such, i apologize. i do listen to what you say and i hear your plea for other religious faiths to be tolerant of your humanist view.... i can tolerate your view while not believing it.

"I didn't transform"............ imo eric the transformation is a life long process and the rate of transformation is dependent upon our willingness to be obedient to Gods commandments. there is a story in the bible about a man who owed a small sum and another man who owed a large sum of money...when the debts for both were cancelled, Jesus asked whom do you think was more appreciative? so maybe you came to Christ thinking you had little to be forgiven therefore you may have had only a little appreciation of Christs offer (yet this did not negate His offer). so it seems you bailed out of the transformation process early on and never allowed the Spirit of God the continue His work.

"eric there was a time when i thought you were a deeper thinker, but statement like that shows just how much you've missed the Spirit of Christ and that no real conversion ever happened in your life."

What makes you think this was all that went into my religious views when I was a believer? I was only talking about the aspect of the subject of this thread. And please do keep in mind that while I may not have ever fulfilled all of the requirements you or Nikos have in mind for the term "Christian," I spent 20 years believing that I was saved because of my faith in Jesus. If you feel comforted in thinking you can "spiritually diagnose" what happened in my mind 10 or 15 years ago based on a couple of snippets I provide here, that's your choice, I suppose. Just seems a bit dodgy to me.

eric,
let me ask to point blank then - were you saved - were you transformed ?

whatever happened to you 10-15 yrs. ago must have been unfortunate for you to become an apostate.

i was making an observation (not a diagnosis) of you spiritual condition. you say you once believed but now you don't believe - in my mind it seems fair to observe that you were not transformed - it would be to your advantage if i am wrong.
i can't speak for nikos, but the only requirement that i am fulfilling, that you are not, is that i still believe and have not denied my Savior. God asks us to believe and obey....this is the requirement that you no longer fulfill.

"let me ask to point blank then - were you saved - were you transformed ?"

I believed I was saved. Transformed -- that's a harder question. My thought processes changed, and the beliefs I had as to why I did what I did changed. I kept in mind as much as I could that I wanted to please God with what I said and did, and I habitually prayed... so in that sense I was "transformed."

But as I said before, I wasn't any more of a "bad person" (so far as I or any of my friends or family could see) before I became religious, any more than I am now. I honestly don't think that the changes I experienced made that much of a difference in my behavior. Certainly no one mentioned any resulting changes to me.

"whatever happened to you 10-15 yrs. ago must have been unfortunate for you to become an apostate."

Hm. Well, I'm in the process of writing a book about my religious changes in my life. If it ever gets published (quite a long shot...) you'll have an opportunity to have any details you might be curious about. You say such a change is "unfortunate." It's made me a lot happier overall, so I don't see it as all that "unfortunate."

fair enough eric.......
i would be interested in your book - keep us bloggers posted as to your progress !

Blogs are really funny things. You can focus on a narrow topic and dwell in the land of ideas forever. Personal encounter – now that’s another thing altogether. You have the chance to ask immediate questions, get feedback, pick up body language, etc. I am very interested in Eric’s change from Christian to non-Christian, because I think it speaks to one of the problems with many churches today: they’re boring!

What I mean by that is that they don’t present the real, sweat-and-blood Gospel message, or convey the excitement of Kingdom living. There’s nothing more dull and milksop than Spirit-less religionism, churchianity. It’s like having the mere shell of something without the living, breathing innards of it. Paul says, “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” which is a profound and inexplicable mystery – yet very, very real. It has something to do with the imago Dei, the indwelling Spirit, and Baptism (identification with Christ).

There is nothing whatsoever boring or unengaging about the glorious image of Messiah being formed in one’s very mind and soul: loving folks, laying down one’s life for others, being chastened by God, sinning and being forgiven and restored, learning the many incredible truths of the Word, seeing prayers answered, etc. But this requires having been born again (or Greek,“from above”). Otherwise it’s an exercise in religionism – outward going-through-the-motion-stuff – Sunday after Sunday, after Sunday. Outward “piety,” but inward same ol’ same ol’.

If that was your story (and I’m saying it was), Eric, I don’t blame you for getting out. I did. The world of disbelief, sin, and secular activism can be far more engaging than religionism – believe me, I know. Going to anti-war and Black Panther rallies was very exciting. Studying the Tibetan Book of the Dead and the Diamond Sutra was most engaging. Going on an extended USO tour of the Caribbean as the lead singer and B3 player for “Bakhti” (rock band) was so cool-feeling, compared to singing “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder” when I wasn’t sure my name was on the roll – whatever that was.

Paul relates what REAL spiritual life involved for him: “Are they (false apostles) ministers of Christ?—I speak as a fool—I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. 24 From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; 26 in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; 27 in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness— 28 besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches.” (II Cor. 11)

I had had all kinds of SBC experiences in my home church and others as a teen. But I went to college and it all evaporated, and I went on my way into everything from philosophy, rock bands, meditation, drugs, ANYTHING to fill the aching existential void (shudder). And then, when I wasn’t really expecting it “surprised by joy;” God revealed the glory of Yeshua to my inner man, in all his forgiving, regenerating power. ALL was new, ALL was forgiven, ALL was joyous, ALL was eternal life. Every soul that is saved is a divine appointment. But one thing it ain’t – a superficial intellectual “decision.” It’s a life-rocking, soul-zinging, joy-shoutin’, mind-blowing, peace-giving TRANSFORMATION. When the volcano of truth ierupts in your hungry heart, there is no resisting or denying it. Only humbled, penitent, child-like hearts can enter the door to the Kingdom, said Jesus.

Forgive me if I get animated and excited. It just comes with hanging out with the Spirit. I’d love to just jump into this computer screen and give you all a big ol’ hug in Jesus’ name, like a bunch of loving Christian young people did to me – and melted my hard, miserable, hippie heart forever! I guess I know what ol’ Paul meant when he said, “I speak as a fool.” I would gladly look stupid and foolish if God would use it to save one soul languishing outside the Kingdom.
Soli Deo gloria!

Oops! Typo. First line in 4th paragraph should read: "(and I'm NOT saying it was)" sorry - big difference.

Who sings the theme song for the show Saving Grace? How can I find the C.D.?