Kingdom Currency (4)

“But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil.” Luke 6.35

Motivated by grace
The context in which this word of instruction occurs finds Jesus encouraging His listeners to seek some reward – as the NKJV has it – from the way they conduct their relationships with others. Jesus says that there is no reward to be gained from merely loving those who love us, or doing good to those who do good to us, or even in lending to those who might be able to repay. There is no reward, that is, in merely living like everybody else, according to the natural inclinations of our flesh, according to the economy of our narcissistic, materialistic, getting-and-spending age.

But what reward - what pleasure – is there in loving those who hate us? Or in doing good to those who are indifferent to our kindness, or even mean to us? Or in giving away our possessions to those who will never pay us back? In the upside-down world of material pleasure, pleasure in life comes from getting, not, in the first instance, from giving.

But Jesus explains that life in the Kingdom that He has brought near is not like life in the natural world. By the grace of God, we who were so long exiled in sin and captivity have been delivered into a Kingdom of precious and very great promises, the goal of which is that we might partake of God Himself, and know fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore that come from dwelling in Him. Thus suffused with and sated by His grace, we are ready to invest and spend grace in all the time of our lives and all the work we’ve been given to do.

But we will never realize that way of life as long as we continue living like people in the world, seeking pleasure and satisfaction in things and circumstances and advantages over others, rather than in the presence of God.

What’s credit?
It might seem strange that Jesus counsels His followers to seek some reward from their interactions with others. Strange, until we look a little more closely at that word.
“What credit is that to you?” Jesus asked those who seek their pleasure in fleshly circumstances and advantages (Lk. 6.33, 34). The Greek word here, which the NKJV translates, “credit,” is charis – grace, or graciousness. “What grace or graciousness is it to you to act like everyone else does?”  The reward (Greek: misthos) of those who live this way is ultimately only self-serving, and can never completely satisfy.

In the Kingdom of God, relationships are transacted not by self-seeking but by Kingdom-seeking, by following whatever course of action will result in the expression and increase of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14.17, 18). And the currency of such transactions, that which passes from us to others, and which we anticipate receiving in exchange, is grace. When what we seek in relationships is grace – the presence of God in fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore – what we will give to others will be grace as well. Then the reward we receive as a credit in our “account” will be more grace, grace abounding.

In our every gesture or word to others – no matter who they are or what they’ve done to us – if we will proffer them the grace of the Lord, we will gain the grace of the Lord, from the Lord, as the true and lasting reward and credit of living according to the divine economy.

A double dividend
And Jesus explains that living this way, extending grace in order to gain grace, brings a double benefit. First, as we show grace to others, as we extend to them the very essence of the divine being, of God’s love and presence and forbearance, we gain the experience of grace, of knowing God with and in and through us, because only by the grace of God, and only in the grace of God, can we ever live like this toward others. Thus, that sense of God’s presence, joy, and pleasure overtakes and enfolds us as we live in grace toward others, because it is actually God at work within us, willing and doing of His good pleasure (Phil. 2.13).

But second, doing so brings the reassurance that we are sons and daughters of the Most High God. Because we know we can’t live this way in our own strength. We know we’d rather pummel those who don’t love us, trample on those who have done us ill, and not be troubled with those from whom we can expect nothing in return.  That’s who we are by nature. But we have a new nature, a rightside-up nature, in the Kingdom economy of God, and every time we proffer grace to someone, because we know we have no power to do this on our own, we are reminded again of just who we have become in Jesus – sons and daughters of the King of Glory and our heavenly Father!

Don’t just be a grace-receiver! Since we are heirs of the eternal Kingdom, let us have grace and live in the joy and pleasure of the Lord (Heb. 12.28). Live in grace, for grace, by grace, and you’ll know the double delight of more grace that Jesus promised to all who truly follow Him.

For reflection or discussion
1.  Does it matter whether, as followers of Christ, we are seeking rewards of grace and graciousness in our relationships with others? Explain:

2.  How does grace relate to the Kingdom of God? What do we mean by saying that grace is the currency of the Kingdom of God?

3.  What’s the difference between receiving grace and living in grace?

Next steps – Preparation: What opportunities for showing grace await you today? How can you prepare for these, beginning right now? What will you need to do in order to extend grace in each of these situations? Live for grace today, then review your day before the Lord before you retire, thanking and praising Him for the grace He has shown in and to you.

T. M. Moore

This week’s ReVision study is Part 4 of a 10-part series, “The Kingdom Economy.” You can download “Kingdom Currency” as a free PDF, prepared for personal or group study. Simply click here. Start your day in the Word of God. Study with T. M. in our daily Scriptorium newsletter, as he walks us through the ongoing work of Christ in the book of Acts. You can subscribe to receive Scriptorium each day at 5:00 am Eastern, or go to the website to download each week’s study in a free PDF.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.