Grace

My church, newhope, in Durham, NC is currently in a series called, "The Grace of God." It sounds simple, and in many ways it is, but it isn't. About a month ago I was sitting in my office with a struggling customer. Lets call this person Jordon (for gender neutrality purposes). Jordon was in my office essentially asking us for more grace. To put it bluntly, we were already bent over backwords with our head by our feet. We had very little to no room for more grace. It was at this time that the following thought occured to me:

God has offered you grace time and again without you doing anything to earn it.

I didn't share this with Jordon but it struck a cord. As a Christian we are called to, not only live for Jesus in church and on mission projects, but in all parts of life from work to play. How does the concept of grace apply to me, in an industry built on payment due dates and credit? I know a couple things:

1) I need to incorporate grace into all areas of life, including work.

2) At work I represent a business, and in this business sometimes you simply need the payment.

In order to come to an answer to how to balence the need to follow Jesus while supporting business I can only turn to the bible.

The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. Instead He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish.

1st Peter 3:9

Obviously, this is primarily refering to the ultimate salvation for you and for me. God wants to extend His grace to you through faith, made possible through the death of Jesus on the cross and His resurrection from the dead. I believe this verse can be extended to apply to us in finance. God is willing to wait and be patient with us to see and hear His message, so I should be willing to wait and be patient with customers such as Jordon, because I should not desire for anyone to lose their vehicle bacause of lack of payment.

According to this last passage we should continue to be patient and let people pay at their own convenience no matter what, because after all God has given us a LONG time to hear His message and to be saved. The bible says, in many places, that God will judge the world.

When the Son of Man caome in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on the throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep and the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.......He will reply, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these you did not do for me. Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

Matthew 25: 31-33, 45-46

God will eventually judge the world and, despite not wanting this, many will perish. In business, particularly finance, grace can be given, but eventually we need a payment. We cannot sustain a business without enforcing the contract. I make every effort to help people, and I should never desire a customer be repossessed because my customers are indeed people with needs and lives of their own. Eventually, just like God will not be able to wait any longer to judge the world, in business we need to make often hard decisions in order to sustain the business. God is concerned about our eternal destinations, so He can, and has, given us years, decades, centuries, and milliniums to come to faith.

This same concept can be applied to the finance world, just on a very abbreviated timeline. The consequences must happen eventually, hopefully, even when consequences must be carried out I can do it with caring and love, as to not hurt the kingdom of God, and the person's eternal home by representing Christ poorly.

P.S. We were able to work with Jordon, and this person is doing just fine.