There can be no doubt that the church is supposed to be the greatest instrument of God's grace. United in God's Spirit, we possess the gifts that are capable of bringing healing and wholeness to the people we encounter ? whether those people are new to us or familiar. God calls us to create and maintain relationships that imitate the relationship God chooses for us to have with God through Christ. Eugene Peterson translates the words of Paul like this in his biblical translation The Message, " If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care ? then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep - spirited friends " ( Philippians 2: 1 - 2 ).

Deep - spirited friends. That's a beautiful phrase. It is full of the nature of the relationship that God desires to have with us and for us to have with each other. We aren't surface people. There is to be depth and substance in our relationships. We aren't loosely connected. There is the power of the creating Spirit of God that is alive and moving within us ? a power that will not let us let go of each other.

From time to time within the life of the church, opportunity rises up for humble servants of God to be the conveyors of grace. We can look beyond our own well - being and extend to those who may have hurt, disappointed, or angered us the image of Christ. We can create an atmosphere and an arena of forgiveness, mercy, and compassion that is only concerned with bringing healing and wholeness to those with whom we worship, serve, and have connections.

Words and actions spoken and done in humility and love and compassion will live forever and will bring into our presence ? in a real way ? the virtues of God's kingdom. We will, most likely, discover unmined gifts and unrealized freedom as we attempt to be to each other what God is for us in Jesus.

The Venerable Bede, father of English church history, wrote these words in the 7^th century,

" Let grace be the beginning, grace the consummation, grace the crown. " Those words are old. They still teem with the stuff of life. Grace. Grace. Grace. In the life of the church, there is no greater gift to give to each other and no greater measure of our embrace of Jesus' way.

Grace and peace,

Pastor Mark