The movie “Pay it Forward” captured the idea of when you get grace, or receive some unexpected blessing from another, we should pass it on to others in some way. In the movie, Trevor McKinney (Haley Joel Osment) takes up his seventh-grade teacher’s challenge to make the world better. Trevor proposes a chain letter of good deeds. He will do good deeds for three people and then instruct each recipient to “pay it forward” by doing good deeds for three other people, who are instructed to pay it forward, and so on.

A couple months ago, Kathy and I took Jean to the Pizza Hut after church for lunch. We always see others from CBC when we go there. When we finished I went to the counter to pay for our dinner and was told that someone had already paid my bill! This made my day! Not that I needed the money or was even worried about the expense, but that someone stepped out to do something gracious for me and my family. So the next time I was at the Pizza Hut, I did the same thing. I saw a family from the church and paid for their meal. The mom said something to the effect, “thank you, we’ll be sure to pay it forward.” Grace should always motivate more grace. In Christ, the old familiar saying, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch” falls apart!

Now we can’t all buy each other’s lunches all the time, but we can always pass on the grace we receive to others in various ways. We are especially called to pass on God’s grace to us to others in the form of using our gifts to serve. In 1 Peter 4:10, believers are instructed to pass on the grace God to others around them. “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace…” this utopian world that is visualized in the movie, is prophesied by Zechariah several thousand years ago. He’s talking about how things will be upon the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth at the “Day of the Lord.” When the Messiah sets up the kingdom everyone will be blessed with much prosperity, each having their own crops and fields and fruit trees. But even better than that, Zechariah 3:10 says, “in that day, declares the LORD of hosts, every one of you will invite his neighbor to come under his vine and under his fig tree.” I believe Zechariah goes on to explain that this will never happen until the grace of God settles upon the whole land and moves in the hearts of His people. In Chapter 4 he writes, “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.”