This is the most important lesson we can teach our students.

on the first day of school, I say, “Everything we do is a choice and every choice has consequences. For example, your friend calls you depressed and you spend all night on the phone, neglecting your homework. You may have made the right choice but it is a choice none the less and one of the consequences is that you receive a zero on your homework. The phone call is the reason for your choice, but it is not an excuse from your homework”

I set expectations high and I am consistent with the consequences.

Here is the GRACE… I still respect, encourage and work with students who do not meet my high expectations. I show them the their value does not depend on making the right choices.

Often, It is the “trouble” students, the ones who travel to the next teacher with a warning from the previous, who respect me the most.

The “good” students tend to dislike me because they are used to getting special treatment[grace]. Of course I am proud of them for making good education choices, and tell them when appropriate, but no special treatment.

Grace and truth indeed.

dm

We seemed to have lost sight of whose doing the ‘giving’ in our relationship to God. Song after song of “I Surrender All” or ” I love you Lord” may miss the larger point—that it is Christ who surrenders all….and God who loves US because of Christ’s work on the cross. At my previous contemporary evangelical church, 14 weeks went by without a clear presentation of the gospel. Instead, the sermons were ‘10 ways to be a better ______’. Evangelicalism’s obsession with the christian, rather than Christ, is dangerous and unbiblical.

We are all sinners to the core. We need preaching and singing that carefully keeps Christ at center. Are you sure you’re not Lutheran?

Thanks for a great post!

I don’t know why grace is so often associated with weakness or license. From doing word studies, I have found that “grace” regards the manner that God works – not out of obligation but joy and generosity. One can be a strong leader without being a jerk.

There is a reason why the East keeps pointing out that the word for canon is different than the word that we translate as “law.” And, the Eastern Early Church fathers constantly insisted that canons were to be treated as medicine. They were to be applied as necessary, sometimes as written, often less severely than written, and sometimes more severely than written. The same is true when we apply discipline to our children, students, wayward youth, etc. Kanon is akin to discipline. Both are medicine intended to bring about salvation or mature human behavior.

Grace is fully consonant with kanon precisely because kanon is NOT nomos (law). A loving medicinal application of kanon is grace in its best application. Grace is God’s medicine towards us in that it is meant to heal. But to say that grace is only unconditional forgiveness is to shortchange God’s loving approach towards us. To separate God’s grace from his intention that his desire that all be saved (even if all are not) and changed into a new creation is to come all too dangerously close to reducing grace to nothing but cheap forgiveness.

God’s grace can sometimes include rather severe treatment in order that we may turn to Him and be saved. Over and over the Old Testament prophets equate God’s love and grace to His punishments intended to bring Israel back. That type of grace in action can best be seen in the books of Hosea and Habbakkuk. Grace and God’s discipline can go hand in hand.

Having said that, grace and discipline are not equivalent either. The thief on the cross and the woman caught in adultery are examples of that. Nevertheless, in both cases note that punishment and grace were actually associated with each other. Though Jesus declines to “punish” note that it was the fear of stoning and the crucifixion of the thief that drove them to receive the grace of God. That is, God’s graceful application of discipline brought those two people to the point that they would look to Jesus and be saved.

This is why I said that Luther could have been wrong. He opposed Law and Grace. But, he was mistaken about Law. And, medicinal discipline and grace actually have a synergistic relationship in which each enhances the other.

God Loves US. We are the apple of his eye, He allowed His only Son to die for us. Why does Christianity preach that we are unworthy? Thats just not true because it denies the very essence and fragrance of our salvation through Jesus Christ.
We’d look a right turkey explaining to a new convert who in the night came to the realisation that Jesus was calling them to a new life and that old life now meant nothing that now all the fanfare and hype is over just to settle down and remember that its only through unmeritted favour that God decided to do this!! Could I say ‘what bunkum!’
Such thoughts cripples rather than releases.
Yes I know many will come at the fact that ‘ whilst we were still sinners…’.
Google grace and the new testament and see just how many occurences of Grace are there and just how rich a word it is and its for US from HIM who loves us dearly.
But greater still simply take time out with God and ask Him directly, don’t take it from me.

Sean,

I didn’t mean to come off as a big meanny. Keep up the good work. I was trying to say sometimes well intentioned people get manipulated by these kids big time. So take care of yourself.

Oh boy, this must be my day: Charley, I also have worked where I was the person having to help folks who had been evicted. The sheriff just throws everything out on the yard, street or curb. Then the neighbors come and run off with whatever they can. Did you ever have to try to get new SS cards when all your documentation is scattered all over — and back?