Amazing (or selective) Grace

An American psychologist tried an experiment which saw him standing in a prominent place handing out money as a proclaimed 'free gift'. As people passed by they were offered a crisp new banknote with the message that it was free. Interestingly, few took the proffered offering!

Now whilst some were surprised by the response and the low take up of the money, I have to say that I wasn't and for a number of reasons:

1. Distrust - our natural cynicism leads us to doubt things on the grounds that it 'looks too good to be true'.

2. Distrust - who would offer something of value for free?

3. Distrust - who is this person giving out money? An unknown person with unknown motives - sounds like an invitation to a time share presentation or a starring role on 'Candid Camera'.

4. Distrust - if I grab the money it will make a statement about me. It will say I am needy, or greedy, or one of a number of things that present me in a negative light.

Although I could go on I'll stop at just four reasons, although of course there are many more, and parallel this with salvation and grace.

I am repeatedly on the end of a discussion which ends up with me being told that how it is so very wrong that anyone could have a God, especially a 'God of love', who would deliberately create everyone knowing in advance that more than half of us would end up in eternal punishment.

To this point I would like to respond by taking the example of the psychologist with which we began as a parallel with this salvation issue. The money was offered to all and yet only some chose to take it. The reasons for not taking the offer differed but the results fell into a number of distinct groups, the two main classifications being:

a. They accepted the gift, and
b. They rejected the gift.

There were subsets, those who wanted to see if it was still on offer the next day or wanted to think about it, some wanted to see what happened to others who took the banknote and perhaps dialogue with them to see what they had and why they had it.

The parallels are obvious and so I will let you dialogue internally (and hopefully externally too) on this concept of amazing grace and selective acceptance and leave you with some questions to ponder;

Where are you with this - is the gift yours?

Where are those you love - accepted or caught in distrust or lost in self?

What about those in your workplace, on the bus, train or tube?

The offer of the gift will last but being finite we won't!

Pax