Simply Gracious

By: Ezra Chang, former Doulos member (Class of 2006)

The question presented to me was this: "What has God taught you through Pastor Ben?" This is, thankfully, not the same question as "What have you learned from God through Pastor Ben?" Teaching is the transmission of knowledge, whereas learning is the reception and internalization of the same. The two do not necessarily come hand-in-hand; I need only look at my life to see that truth.

Ben has taught me much over the years; in fact, I've known him for eleven and a half years - fully half of my life. It's all still here, in my head; but you wouldn't know it, looking at my life. I remain a deeply flawed individual; I am undisciplined and lack self control, I am missing good judgment and say things I shouldn't, and to top it off I have a Baal-worshipper's knack for trying to straddle the fence when it comes my allegiance to Christ and the opposing inclination to serve myself to another helping of the world's pleasures. Within our culture, teachers are often judged based on their students. I implore you not to, in this case.

In my humble opinion, it is to Ben's credit that he has stayed with me, as well as others, seeing us as charges from God to lead along the path to righteousness. Even though most of the things he taught me, pursuant to that goal, haven't stuck, he
displayed the fruit of the Spirit in the way he continued to pour into us. Through his example, I understand a little bit more what it is to follow Christ. I have glimpsed a shadow of God's love in the way Ben goes out of his way to mentor us.
Ben has mirrored Christ in the way he extends grace to me, and it is this concept of grace that I am most taken with. Grace is a concept so foreign to me, yet is the one thing I need and want most. Even as I go through an extremely dry season of my life, thinking back on all those years brings to mind one of the first passages I ever memorized, even before I became a Christan, Romans 3:23. With some of the surrounding text, it reads:

"But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption by Christ Jesus."
- Romans 3:21-24

The context to which this passage was directed was, partially, an incorrect understanding of salvation on the part of Jews in the Roman church. Paul needed to explain to them that they were no better than their non-Jewish brethren for all their rituals and the history those rituals supposedly represented. He makes clear that salvation comes not from our own actions, but from the sacrifice of Christ alone, given freely by God.

It is in this spirit (and in the Spirit) that I perceive Ben to have acted, in all our interactions. It is through grace that I must relearn to reinterpret my life right now, a lesson I have only recently perceived after so many years, and I am grateful to God for having taught it through Ben.