The grace alone mindset like any other concept gets dangerous when it is taken pessimistically or passively. As spiritual children, we are sometimes not yet mature enough to understand the concepts of courage, diligence, faith etc which are all critical components of diligence and producing fruits in multiples in due season. These gifts of Spirit which are gifts of grace as well are given to us based on our ability to receive them (willful desire, humility, knowledge).

If you were a guest/visitor (invited or uninvited) in an event, but you decide to go early, you instantly get an opportunity to become more than just a ‘guest’ by the very act of just going early (prudence/wisdom). However if you just go early and hang around or sit down completely idle, you’ll still have less of an opportunity to be noticed, perhaps even sent away if you came too early and you’re unwilling to help prepare for the event. However if you go and take a disposition of service (humility) e.g. cleaning your seat and perhaps a few seats around you, or arrange them in a better order, etc, your humility and willful disposition to service tends to draw you close to the attention of the organizers/management, and if they need help, they’ll welcome your disposition. However, imagine you know nothing about events or the type of visitors that are attending that event (knowledge), there is instantly very little you can do.

This is a bit like what it means to work with grace. A humble disposition and willingness to serve with a little bit of knowledge of what serving entails. God’s desire for us as his children is like that of any other loving Father. He doesn’t want to lay burdens on us but he also doesn’t want us to foolishly lose the free gift of life given to us. His dying of the cross is the greatest of all gifts and graces but also a gift that is easy to waste by using it for the barest minimum \- salvation. God did not create us ‘to be saved’. He created us ‘saw that his creation was good’ and said ‘be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion..’. He created us in his goodness, out of abundant love and desire to express his goodness and love. Therefore aiming for the barest minimum to just be saved if not merely a disposition of humility and our shortcoming capacity becomes an aim for the barest minimum. Being okay with the barest minimum when it’s in our power to do a bit more is not humility but rather comparable to contempt, envy or wickedness, like in the parable of the talents.

Being fruitful with the free gifts we have received require faith, courage, and diligence. It also requires knowledge – understanding how best to use the gifts by studying the scriptures. And it requires humility which is a fundamental bedrock by which our spiritual transformation and maturity can take place, for a full cup can only receive little water most of which will waste.

Like the one disposed to serve even as a guest in an event, being of the disposition to serve even though we become stewards in such events, handing food down to others, we must never forget that we are also guest like the other and our temporary promotion is given for a singular purpose, not to go and drink and get fat simply because we are the one serving food or to be so strict in judging who we hand food to in the event without even consulting the management. These are all forms of sloth, as servants we must remain diligent in serving, and vigilant for that which has been placed in our care.