Can a Deeper Understanding of Grace Cure Comparison?

In today's second installment of the Burden of Better Book Club, Heather talks about how understanding grace cures comparison. In her book, The Burden of Better, Heather explores four different manifestations of grace in the daily life of the follower of Jesus. She also answers some of your questions about comparison and idealism (from the first Burden of Better Book Club Episode here.) Here's what to expect from today's show:

• Did you experience any spiritual push back when you realized you were entrenched in this kind of sin?
• Is it normal to feel overwhelmed with the scope of my discontent?

1. God's saving grace.
2. God's sanctifying grace.
3. God's growing grace.
4. God's sustaining grace.

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Section 2 of this book is called the grace-filled life – And in it, I talk about there being 4 different kinds of grace. There is saving grace, sanctifying grace, growing grace and sustaining grace.

If you’re like me – you sang Amazing Grace in church and maybe you only thought about grace in the context of Jesus dying on the cross to save you from going to Hell. But, as I explain through this section – a truer and deeper understanding of grace goes much deeper.

If we truly understood that God’s saving grace was so much more than saving us from hell after this life – I think we’d all live a little differently. You see the truth is God’s saving grace tells us that nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate us from his love. We are unconditionally loved and accepted after we receive Jesus as our savior. There is no one else on this earth who can love us this way. We’d like to think parents could but loving without any conditions is very difficult for most of us. So we have this crazy, completely reliable constant source of love and acceptance that should mean we never have to be afraid of what other people think – Truly – if we lived in our identities as women who are unconditionally loved and accepted by God – we’d never stress about what others think.

There’s more to saving grace than that even – in terms of speaking to our confidence issues and our body image issues – so I hope you’ll snag the book and at least read that chapter.

I also talk about sanctifying grace. This is our grace to become more like Jesus and less like ourselves – every day- God is gracious to sanctify us. Now, sometimes sanctification feels painful – because, like the reader question I answered – we see the depth of our sin and once we’ve seen it – we know we have to work on being different – we have to change. No one likes change. It’s uncomfortable. But, it’s a grace that God doesn’t leave us stuck in our sin issues – He unconditionally accepts and loves us -but then graciously holds our hands as we walk out of issues like body image issues or comparison issues. He shows us the idols we’ve been serving but as Romans says – it’s his KINDNESS that leads us to repentance. He doesn’t beat us over the head or shame us for our sin – he covers our guilt and shame and says, okay – now walk a new way.

The third kind of grace I talk about is Growing Grace  - This is the grace you have received when you realize that you were made on purpose and for a purpose. This is the grace where you get to figure out how and why you were made and see the beauty in God’s design for you and for your life. Honestly – one thing I see