Sharing My Lectio from Last Night
1 Corinthians 1:18
18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
What I hear here, in direct contradiction of much of what I had been taught in the Baptist Church is that we "are being saved." Now Baptists and other fundamentalists seem to believe "once saved, always saved." In contrast, Paul's words seem to imply that salvation is an on-going process. Even if his statement is applied to a corporate entity, the implication is that we all together are being saved, but the process is, as yet, incomplete.
What does it mean for me, for us all? I think of Gerard Manley Hopkins--"the world is charged with the grandeur of God." Grace is available to us all. As Portia says, in The Merchant of Venice, speaking of the quality of mercy :it droppeth from the heavens as the gentle rain." Grace is abundant and never ending, like a gentle rain that thoroughly soaks into parched ground. I am that desperately thirsty ground, I am the parched earth. I can reach out for life-giving grace with a simple prayer. If only I would open my eyes I would see the saving grace, like a golden net protecting me even from myself. The whole world is charged with it invisibly and mightily--it is the thought that holds all that is together. It is the ever shifting gentle silken ties that draw me to Him all unknown. Grace abounding to this chief of sinners, grace unto bodily and spiritual salvation, but it is not accomplished, until we with Jesus on the cross say, "It is accomplished," the final, joyous complete stepping into His Kingdom and His Way.
Lord, give me your grace. Let me sacrifice everything for you. Let me offer all that I am and all that you have given me in complete accordance with your will and grace. Give me the opportunity to sacrifice so that I will learn better to love thee, seek thy face, and follow the path of grace that leads like a cataract to salvation. Through the sacrifices you allow me, may I learn to truly love souls and drag them with me into the undeniable vortex of grace.
