No Tit for Tate with Grace

I have recently discovered a book recommended by Michael Spencer, aka the Internment Monk. The book is 'Between Noon and Three,' by Robert Farrar Capon. He hits the nail on the head when it comes to talking about grace. Grace isn't just a bystander. It is the very thing that we need to utterly depend upon.

From the book:

Confession is not the first step on the road to recovery; it is the last step in the displaying of a corpse... words like reform and rehabilitation should be ruled out of order. The only proper word here is resurrection. Grace does not do things tit-for-tat; it acts finally and fully from the start.

We love tit-for-tat. Rules are so much easier and convenient. It makes everything nice and clean. No mess. Grace is messy. Very messy. We are dead. Dead people cannot clean themselves up. They can be reformed. Only resurrected. Made completely new again.

Confession is necessary. Not to clean a guilty conscious, mind you. But it is the place where we realize our guilt. And we confess that we cannot fix ourselves. Only then can we place ourselves in the hands of our Father, be resurrected, made new, and live completely under His grace.