John 1:17, Grace or Law

Over the past week our church has had a Vacation Bible School. God gave us over 30 on and off throughout the week. Out of all the nights Monday was the hardest. We had had several things not quite work out the way I was hoping. To top it off, it was the first time that the church had put one on in several years.

Afterward, I had several of my volunteers come up to me and were very critical of my decisions. At the time I fought for how I had it. When I couldn't take it anymore I left the conversation and went to take care of things outside and think through what had happened. I eventually came to the conclusion that my volunteers were right and I made the changes for the next night and we kept going.

The following morning the head pastor led a devotional on the following passage.

John 1:16-18
English Standard Version (ESV)
16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.
17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
18 No one has ever seen God; the only God,[b] who is at the Father's side,[c] he has made him known.

he focused more on verse 17 than the other two. He stated that there are two ends of a pendulum for leaders. Those who lead by the law, and those who lead by grace.

Those who land in the law side of the extreme will be very hard to budge from what is "written in stone." They will continue to abide by the law that Moses gave tot he Israelite people. These people will also try to follow every small detail to a T.

Those who lead by grace extreme will be overbearing in the way of letting people off too easily. It is very easy for people to walk all over them. While they are showing the grace that Jesus gave us, these people will be almost too relaxed in their actions to see real problems.

We must them find the right balance between the two. there will be times when we have to follow the rules of life and the ministry and yet there are times when we need to show grace and be flexible with the rules and be able to rearrange different aspects of our beliefs.

This is one of those things that I have been thinking about over the last few weeks. I have had to continually fight against evil that is trying to find its way into the church and separate it into bits and pieces. This cannot happen at all costs.

Continue to pray for me as I am on PRIME. The biggest thing for now is done and over with, now starts the second half and the longer half of the internship.