“In my anguish I cried to the Lord and He answered me by setting me free”
(Psalm 118:5).

I grew up in a family of five kids.  Life at our house was rowdy, busy, loud and fun.  We were always joking.  We were forever playing games.

Like canasta

Now, canasta was “the family game.”  Sure, we plowed through rounds of Monopoly or Yahtzee, Scrabble, Othello or Clue pretty frequently, too.  Playing canasta, though, was like an initiation rite for us.  Friends and boyfriends or girlfriends all gathered around the table at some point and we began the canasta lessons

Okay, so first we are going to tell you about points.  You see the goal is to reach 5000 points before anyone else.  So, Jokers are worth 50.  Got that?  And Aces and 2’s are 20 points.  Now, Jokers and 2’s are wild cards, but everything else is a natural card.  Cards 8 and higher are worth 10 points and anything less than that is worth 5 points.  Except for 3’s, you see, because red 3’s are special.  If you get one of those, you have to put it down right away on your board and you get 100 points for that at the end of the hand and you get another card to replace it.  Unless you don’t put anything else on the board the whole round in which case the red 3 counts against you.  Got it?  Okay, so now let’s talk about how to freeze the deck . . .

It was dizzying really, trying to explain this game to a newcomer.

Sometimes, it may feel like it’s just as complicated to explain the gospel of grace.

It’s not because grace is so convoluted or hard to understand.  It’s us.  We tangle the web until it’s a jumble of mis-explanations and unnecessary additions.

But Jesus said we should have faith like a child and that means that God’s Good News, the Gospel, is simple enough for a child to understand.

Last night, I listened to my oldest daughter recite her memory verse for church.  Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We broke the verse down and chatted about it.  And as complicated as it may have sounded at first, the message was simple.

We sin and so we’ve earned death.  But because of Jesus, God gave us eternal life.

That’s the whole salvation message right there.  Simple.  Straightforward.  And easy enough for my child to understand during a simple evening chat on our living room sofa.

She learned the verse that summed up Jesus’ entire purpose for coming to this earth: “The Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14).  And she can tell you in one quick verse how we accept the gift of eternal life: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).

So, why do we make it so difficult?  Why do we add in requirements and make judgements?  Why do we create hierarchies of sin and levels of righteousness?  Why do we create rituals and blessings that hinge on extra expectations?

That’s what the Pharisees did.  They tried to trip Jesus up with complicated questions about the after-life and regulations about the Sabbath and whose sin was to blame for a man’s blindness.  They delighted in the complexity of the law and rejected the simplicity of grace.

In the same way, we ourselves stumble into being spiritual lawmakers at times.  But we are always doomed to failure in that system of rules and regulations and hoops to jump through.  We become chained, trapped and imprisoned by the law.

Paul called it slavery.  He said it was a “yoke of bondage” that we accept even though “Christ has made us free” (Galatians 5:4).

Free.  Free from condemnation.  Free from perpetually feeling less than.  Free from always having to perform to earn approval, salvation, and nearness to God.  Free from the oppressiveness of perfection.

That’s not to say that God lacks depth or that it’s enough to skirt the surface of the Bible, dwelling in a shallow and superficial understanding of our faith.  Just because the gospel that God has crafted is simple, doesn’t mean God is.

Even Paul, the accomplished Jewish scholar and rhetorical expert, admitted sometimes God was just too much for him to fathom.  He exclaimed, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! (Romans 11:33).

And so we plunge the depths of God’s Word, rolling up our sleeves and becoming students of the Bible, not to earn religious accolades, but to know Him.  We want to worship Him in “spirit and an in truth.”  We want to love Him not just with our heart and soul, but with our mind also.

But at the end of the day, we need to be able to explain grace to a child, partly so we can maintain our own focus.

When I was an English teacher, I occasionally marked students’ papers with K.I.S.S.—Keep It Simple and Sweet.  That’s what our God did for us.  He knew our propensity to miss the point because we’re ensnared in confusion, so He kept grace simple.  He placed the freedom of the gospel within easy grasp.

If we’re making it difficult, if we’re expecting perfection, if we’re demanding impossible standards and if we’re imposing obstacles to salvation, we’re missing just how simple and sweet God’s grace really is.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2011 Heather King