When rays of light pass through a magnifying glass, they refract, or bend in towards each other. The spot on where these rays of light converge is called the “focal point,” and the intensity of the light at the focal point is determined by the ratio between the area of the lens and the area of the focal point.
If, for instance, you had a lens with a diameter of 10 cm and it focused the sunlight to a point 1 mm wide, the ratio of the lens to the focal point would be 78.5 to 0.0314, or 2,500 to 1. In other words, the power of the sunlight at the focal point would be 2,500 times more intense than it is when it comes through the lens.
If you’ve ever lit a piece of paper on fire using a magnifying glass before, you’ve experimented with this property of a convex lens, the way it concentrates the energy of the sun to a burning point.
So: one of the basic truths of the Gospel is that, for Christians, our entire life with God depends on God’s grace, not our works. It is by grace we have been saved, the Bible says in one place, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. And, of course, if there was anything we could do to merit, earn or generate God’s grace on our own, it wouldn’t be grace.
The obvious challenge here is just that: if it really is all grace, does that mean that there’s nothing Christians need to do? Is there no expectation that our lives will change as a result of our relationship with God? Is there no actual requirement for holy living?
The Bible is quite clear in a number of places that there is. There are some very concrete things that Christians can and must do if they want to grow and mature in their salvation, even though salvation is entirely a free, unmerited gift.
One theologian, a guy named John Wesley, called these things “Means of Grace.” The word “means” here is meant in the old fashioned sense, like a “means to an end.” And the means of grace are things Christians do as a “means” towards the “end” of experiencing God’s grace.
Wesley divided the means of grace into two broad categories. There were what he called “Works of Piety”—things Christians do to grow in their love for God—and there were “Works of Mercy”—things that express God’s love to others. Works of Piety include things like: baptism, receiving communion, studying scripture, prayer, fasting, and so on. Works of Mercy include things like: visiting the sick or the prisoner, feeding and clothing those in need, or sheltering the stranger.
It is important to realize that, though they are necessary for the Christian, these works of mercy and piety are not ways we earn or merit or deserve salvation; they are simply the “means” whereby we experience it more brightly and clearly and intensely.
You might say that the Means of Grace are to God’s salvation like the magnifying glass is to the sun. The sunlight is always shining over us, warming us and lighting our way, but it won’t light any paper on fire until it’s been focused to a point by a magnifying glass. The glass doesn’t light the fire, of course. The sun does. But still the glass is necessary if the fire’s going to start.
In the same way, God’s grace is continually shining over us, but if it’s to light any fires in our lives—spiritually speaking, that is—it must be concentrated to a point by the Means of Grace. And so when we pray or we help the vulnerable, when we study the scriptures or we feed the hungry, and so on—these things don’t save us—they don’t light the fire—but they do bring God’s grace to a focal point in our lives, so that the fire of salvation can burn, deepening our love for God and broadening our love for others.
Perhaps, this is what the Bible means when it says: We are God’s workmanship created in Christ to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
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