‘Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do’ (Ephesians 2:3-10)

The Hebrew word for sin, ‘Chata’, generally means to fall short or to miss the mark. It was a term used for when an archer fired his arrow and it missed the target. Its a useful image that describes our inability not to sin (‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ Romans 3:23). Of our own efforts we can do nothing…the law merely pointing out our faults or as St. Paul says, only condemns us and is powerless to do anything else (Romans 8:3).

So what does it mean to be saved by Grace? I understand it as the impact of knowing how much we are loved by God even though it is undeserved, unmerited and not earned in any way. It is the impact of being fully alive in relationship to the living God and being changed…transformed… the ‘ever changing from Glory to Glory’ of 2 Corinthians 3:18.

The cynic would say so why not carry on sinning as God will always love you come what may? This misses the point (or the mark!) as the sin itself interferes with living in relationship with the Lord. Once you have experienced the love of God, your want more and that wanting and experiencing more of God necessitates the driving out of sin. The letting go of sinful ways and situations we live in is a consequence of our relationship with God…not a means of attaining that relationship.

So how do we know if we are growing in the Lord? How do we know that sin is receding and we are indeed ‘ever changing from glory to glory’? One way is to try and identify our idols. Our idols are the things in our lives that we exalt in the place of our creator. The things we often inadvertently worship and give an undue attention to. Once we have identified our idols we can then watch them fall…like the skittles in a bowling alley!

Whenever I go bowling for the first time in a while I really concentrate on what I am doing and put lots of effort in. The ball invariably goes in the gulley and all ten skittles remain standing! After a bit of practice at rolling the ball, we learn to use our whole body and not just the arm, learning to achieve a sense of balance. It is then that we start to knock over the pins. I don’t know about you, but when I get a full strike, I really do not know how I have done it!

During the naughties my enthusiasm for the person of Bruce Springsteen reached new heights. In 2008 my friend and I queued up for 6 hours to get into the pit at the RDS in Dublin. We ended up with two people between us and the stage. With fever pitch reached, ‘Born to Run’ was played during the encore with Bruce playing a guitar solo right at the front of the stage in front of us. He let fans strum the guitar at one point and I managed to touch the strings on the neck of his guitar. At another point I managed to hold Bruce’s wrist when he was shaking hands with people. I was raving about this for weeks. When a friend suggested that it all sounded a bit like idol worship, I replied that no, it was just a bit of fun.

Today I will not queue up for 6 hours to see a rock star….I really have no desire to…and I really didn’t even see that skittle fall over! Praise the Lord!