When I lived in LA, I used to go out looking for prostitutes.

In fact, a group of us went out looking for prostitutes. We would buy them food, talk about the love of Jesus, and maybe even talk about how they ended up working the streets.

I used to think I was being so full of grace by doing this.

But looking back, although I still think it was a loving thing to do, I wasn't exactly showcasing God's grace. Because I was not the father they rebelled against. I was not the mother up at night worrying about them. I was not the husbands and boyfriends they were cheating on.

To say I showed them grace is like saying Bill Gates is generous for giving a homeless man 100 bucks.

Nice? Sure. But generous? Hardly.

Grace is undeserved favor. But not just undeserved in an objective way. Undeserved in the sense that the person offering grace feels the weight of that undeserved-ness.

In other words, the person offering grace has been hurt. And to offer grace they must absorb the hurt. It is costly.

When Jesus engaged with and loved prostitutes and notorious sinners, he wasn't just being kind to people who had lived offensive lives. He was being kind to people who had offended HIM. Those sins -- all our sins -- are first and foremost sins against God. And to have a restored relationship with us, our sins had to be paid for. There was a cost.

God himself absorbed that cost on the cross.

The measure of how gracious we are is not how kind we are to sinners. 

The measure of how gracious we are is how kind we are to those who have sinned against ME. 

If we want to live lives that reflect Jesus' love for us, lives that are free from the need to get even and dish out justice, we should expect opportunities to offer grace to others. Maybe you are facing one of those opportunities right now.

Will it cost us to show God's grace? Absolutely.

But where there is grace offered in Jesus' name, where we die to our desires for revenge and justice, there is a resurrection of something else on the other side.

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. - Ephesians 4:32