Have you experienced God’s redemptive grace in your life?
What did that feel like? What happened in your life as a result? God’s redemptive grace is a powerful, transforming presence in our lives.
But if you talk to enough people, it’s pretty obvious there are lots of different definitions or perspectives on what grace is and how it works in our lives.
And there are different aspects of grace, just like there are many facets in a diamond.
My guest today is Jennifer Sakata, an ordained pastor in the Presbyterian Church USA. We’re going to talk specifically about God’s redemptive grace. This is the grace that redeems us from our mistakes, the sins we’ve committed, and all the ways we’ve been hurt over the years.
Here’s our conversation about God’s redemptive grace
James Early:
Hey, everybody, and welcome again to the Bible Speaks to You Podcast. One of the most often quoted verses in the Bible is from the second chapter of Ephesians. It’s verse 8. “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God.”
But if you talk to enough people, it’s pretty obvious there are lots of different definitions or perspectives on what grace is and how it works in our lives. And now there are many different aspects of grace, just like there are many facets in a diamond.
Welcome to Jennifer
James Early:
And today, my guest and my good friend Jennifer Sakata and I are going to talk about grace, specifically about God’s redemptive grace. Jennifer is a pastor in the Presbyterian Church, and I’ll have all her biographical information in the show notes, and you can check that out. Talking about her podcast, I just want to jump right in here. First of all, Jennifer, welcome to the Bible Speaks to You. I’m so glad you’re here.
Jennifer Sakata:
Oh, James, this has been long in coming and I am so grateful for our conversation, fellow podcasters. Right?We love doing this.
Grace cleans up our past
James Early:
For everybody listening, I was a guest on Jennifer’s podcast several months ago, and I’ll have that link in the show notes in case you’d like to listen to it. We talked about How Grace Cleans Up Messy Past. That was her episode 54.
Jennifer Sakata:
Oh, I loved it. Because we all have some mess in our past, don’t we? And our present and our future, I’m afraid.
James Early:
But fortunately, there’s less mess because that’s what grace does, it clean up the mess.
Jennifer Sakata:
So amen to that.
What is God’s grace?
James Early:
Thank goodness. Let’s jump right in here. What is grace? As I said, there are lots of different perspectives, and people use the word both in the church and out of the church to mean so many different things. How do you think of grace? What is God’s grace?
Jennifer Sakata:
Well, by definition and through the, if you will, the theological definition of grace is it’s unmerited favor. It’s unearned. We can’t do anything to deserve or put together forgiveness and pardon. It’s what Jesus extended to us on the cross when he died. But not only when he died, but when he rose again and ascended back to the Father. So the dictionary definition of grace is that unmerited favor. What that looks like in practice is, is God’s movement toward us. And we tend to think about grace as that which comes to us after there’s been a separation and brokenness.
God’s grace before the fall
Jennifer Sakata:
But I think grace was extended to us in the garden Even before Adam and Eve took of the fruit, God created us in his image, in relationship with Him. It was his movement toward us that makes connection possible. Once the fall came, once Adam and Eve made their decision, that impacted the rest of us. That changed the on ramp, if you will, for grace. But it didn’t change the fact that God’s movement toward us is a gift because he desires to be connected with us.
James Early:
I have people from lots of different theological backgrounds listening to this podcast. So different people listening may have a different perspective on how you’d say these things. I like the idea that you’re sharing that it’s about our relationship with God. When he created us in his image and likeness, that’s a definite relationship. Just as you were saying this, I’m thinking, yes, it’s God coming to us. It’s us coming to God in another way.
Being with God
James Early:
It’s us being with God, being conscious of the fact that we’re with God. We’re walking together. We’re not walking… I mean, it’s a metaphor… walking toward each other, away. I mean, we use those metaphors. But when you experience and feel God’s presence, God’s grace, God’s love, He’s there with you.
Jennifer Sakata:
When I think about grace, it’s also an invitation to belonging. It’s an affirmation of the fact that we belong with God because we were created in his image. He made us to belong with Him.
James Early:
Oh, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Say that again. That is wonderful. I’ve never heard anybody put it quite that way. That’s just absolutely beautiful.
Grace means we belong to God
Jennifer Sakata:
Well, it goes back again, like I said, before Adam and Eve made their decision. We tend to think about Genesis 3 and onward when we think about our relationship with God, that God has repaired our relationship and made it possible for us to be in his presence. That is true.
But Even before Genesis 3 and the fall, there was Genesis 1 and 2, where God created us in His image because He wanted to be in relationship with us. And even though Adam and Eve didn’t have anything to be forgiven of before they made their decision, God was moving toward them. He came to them in the garden. He met with them, he talked with them. And there’s this beautiful image of belonging with God from the very beginning.
Redemptive grace restores our connection with God
Jennifer Sakata:
So we have that belonging in the beginning, but after they made their choice, which we have followed up with our own choices, we need an on ramp to return to that place of belonging. And that’s what grace does for us.
James Early:
Wow. And that was really the whole message of Jesus. He came to show us our relationship with the Father. You could put it that way, that we are the sons and daughters of God as well. Yeah, we do have that relationship.
Going deeper into God’s redemptive grace
Let’s talk specifically about. As I said, there are many different aspects of grace, but I want to talk specifically about the nature of redemptive grace. Can you go a little deeper on what that means, what it means to you, and maybe an experience you’ve had that sort of brought that out and revealed itself to you?
Jennifer Sakata:
I’ll say, well, let’s see, James, have you got a few hours? Because we’ve got a lot for sure. For sure. But I think at its foundational place, redemptive grace is all about, like I mentioned earlier, God’s movement toward us to provide for us something that we cannot provide for ourselves.
Redemptive grace is God moving toward us
So a small example might be. I lost my patience earlier today, and I said some things that I wish I had not said. I can’t take those words back. I can’t recreate that moment. But God has the capacity to take the sting, the bite, the separation out of that because of my relationship with Jesus, and rework me on a different path so that theoretically and potentially I can make a different decision in my next conversation. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t.
Jennifer Sakata:
So I come back once again. Right. I am no graduate of grace. So we talk a lot about grace on my podcast, and we’ll talk about it here today. But it doesn’t mean that I or any of us has it figured out. But redemptive grace is about this process of continuing to walk toward God as he has come toward us.
Theological grace and real life grace
James Early:
Yeah. You said something earlier that I really appreciated. You said theologically, and you had all these words, and then you said, but in real life, this is the way it works. Something like that. Sometimes we make this theological doctrine, a theological proposition, this whole theological platform about grace or anything in the Bible, some aspect of our faith.
But one of the phrases you use is “real grace for real life.” Can you talk about the difference between grace as just some theological intellectual concept that people argue about as to what it means when it’s like grace with its feet on the ground and in your daily life? And what does it look like? You gave a little example, but I know you’ve had much more significant examples than that.
Jennifer Sakata:
Yeah.
Real life redemptive grace
James Early:
What is grace like in our real lives?
Jennifer Sakata:
Well, one example that I’d share goes back a lot of years. I grew up in a very broken, dysfunctional home, like perhaps many of your listeners as well. And it was a place where safety was not my everyday experience. I had given my life to Jesus at a fairly young age. And then in my teen years, was baptized and made that journey from “Jesus is my free ticket to heaven” to he wants to be my Lord. In other words, my leader, the person who is impacting how I live my life in the direction of my life.
And so I was around 18 or 19 years old. I was a youth group leader in training at a summer camp with my church.
Redemptive grace at a campfire
Jennifer Sakata:
And we were all gathered around a campfire. You’ve probably heard or seen these types of stories before. And our pastor said, “What is it that is keeping you from receiving God’s love? Take a log and put it on the fire.” Beautiful, symbolic, sacred moment, right?
And immediately my thoughts went to my mother. And I was having this internal argument with God and said, “I don’t need to think about my mother anymore. I’ve thought about her plenty. And besides, I’m a youth group leader in training. This isn’t for me. This is for the kids, right?”
Jennifer Sakata:
But as I sat and the Holy Spirit kept repeating that question, I had a very clear sense that I was holding on to bitterness that was keeping me from receiving God’s love.
God’s redemptive grace spotlights forgiveness
Now, there are lots of reasons that my mom didn’t care for me in the way that a mother is supposed to care for her children. She had a lot of things that she was dealing with. But the reality is, sitting around that campfire, I had a decision to make.
I had been forgiven by Jesus, and was I going to extend forgiveness to someone who I didn’t think deserved it? Whoa, maybe my sin was a little smaller, right? We have a tendency to put things on a categorical list. We rate them. Well, that’s just a 2 sin. Ooh, that’s a 10.You can forgive her, but not her.
Jennifer Sakata:
And that’s the way we think when we’re left to our own devices. But grace on the ground says back to that Ephesians 2 passage, it is a gift of God to be forgiven. And it doesn’t say, Jennifer, you’ve been given more or less of a gift than someone else. All of it is a gift from God.
And because it is a gift, I then am obligated to extend that gift, no matter how difficult it might be to someone else. So coming back to the story, I heard God say, you need to tell your mother that you forgive her. And again, the mental battle in my mind, you can only imagine the conversation.
When you don’t want to forgive someone, God’s redemptive grace helps you do it
Jennifer Sakata:
It went something like this. Are you kidding me, Lord? Were you not there when all those things were happening? And besides, If I tell her I forgive her, she’s just going to say, “For what?” And then I sense the Holy Spirit saying, I am writing a story in your mother’s life. But right now I’m concerned about the bitterness that’s keeping you from receiving my love for you.
So two weeks later, I sit across from her at our local ice cream shop and I told her a little bit about what had happened. And I said, mom, “I forgive you.” And guess what? She said, you can figure this out “For what?” My spiritual finger was all up. And I was like, “See God? I told you this was going to happen.”
Redemptive grace prepares you for what’s coming
Jennifer Sakata:
But here’s what was beautiful about the grace of God. He had already prepared me for that moment because he had already begun to remind me that just as he was writing a story in my life, he was also writing a story in her life. And I was not in charge of her decisions, only of mine.
That might have been the end of the story, but I made a decision that day to live into forgiving her. So, phone calls, visits, things that I had avoided up to that time and for about, well, what ended up being six years, I continued to build a bridge toward my mom because God helped me take the steps.
We were sitting at Bible study, it was my birthday. And the women who were gathered, they all shared different ways that they had seen God at work in my life that year. And my mother happened to be visiting that weekend.
Her mom recognized her love
Jennifer Sakata:
She’s ordinarily very quiet. And at the end she spoke up and said, “I’d like to share something about my daughter. My daughter loved me when I was unlovable and she forgave me when I was unforgivable.”
James Early:
Wow.
Jennifer Sakata:
And here’s the thing. All those six years in between, I could have demanded that she apologize. I could have made her own up and acknowledge all the things that she hadn’t done, which I think she should have.
And theoretically, technically, yes, she should have as my mother, but for lots of reasons, she didn’t. And I could have required that of her. But had I, then I would have missed out on those six years of living through grace in a slowly deepening connection with her.
Redemptive grace in action
James Early:
God was redeeming the relationship. He was redeeming you, but he was also working on your relationship with him.
Jennifer Sakata:
Oh, every bit. Because forgiveness is not a one and done. Grace is not something that comes to us once and we’ve got the stamp of approval on it because we’ve been approved by God now, because we’ve been forgiven through Jesus. It’s A process every single day of sanctification.
When Peter asked Jesus, “How many times do I need to forgive someone?” You can almost see in Peter’s mind, like, “Oh, I am so tired, or forgiving the same thing over and over again.” But Jesus wasn’t talking about a mathematical equation when he said 70 times 7. He was saying, you forgive until you stop keeping track. And that’s the journey God was taking me on with my mother.
God’s redemptive grace available in every situation
Jennifer Sakata:
And you don’t have to have a story like mine. You know, people hear my story sometimes and they think, “Oh, that’s so big and so dramatic.” The details for all of us are different, but the reality of grace is still the same. Every one of us is equipped to move toward God and then move toward another because he has moved toward us first.
Letting God write your story
James Early:
I loved what you said about God was writing a story in your life, but also writing a story in your mom’s life. You weren’t responsible for hers. She wasn’t responsible for yours. I love that metaphor of God writing a story of our life from His perspective.
We see our lives from our perspective when. But if we could see ourselves from God’s perspective, we would see things from a higher view. Perhaps more of an overview of what’s really going on. And maybe we wouldn’t get so discouraged or overly excited when we shouldn’t.
Jennifer Sakata:
Easily offended, maybe.
Redemptive grace shows us we’re the image and likeness of God
James Early:
Yeah, all those things we would see, “Oh, there’s a bigger plan going on here.” God is the author of our lives. I hadn’t thought about Him writing our story, rewriting our story, showing us the story He’s already written about us all the way back to, like you talk about, being made in God’s image and likeness in Chapter 1 of Genesis, before that other part of the story happened.
Jennifer Sakata:
Yeah, dun, dun, dun.
James Early:
We need to get back to that original story he wrote about us. And it’s like you said, about relationship and being present with God. I think that is so, so powerful. And all of that is really grace.
Grace is knowing we belong to God
Jennifer Sakata:
In order for us to receive God’s grace, we have to go back to that image of belonging. We have to go back to that reality of welcome that we have with God. Because if we are not rooted in that place of belonging with God, then we spend our entire lives trying to earn our position and our space, either with God or with the people around us.
James Early:
Oh, let’s talk about that a little bit. Let’s go a little deeper here. Because a lot of people I talk to feel they don’t deserve to be in God’s presence. They don’t deserve to have a relationship, or they’re not worthy, or they’ve done so many terrible things, God doesn’t want them anymore.
Because of all these aspects of being separated from God, they can’t imagine that God would love them because they’re identifying themselves with what Adam and Eve did or the mistakes they’ve made, or what’s happened to them in the world that wasn’t their fault.
You are not separated from God’s redemptive grace
And they’re not seeing themselves as the image and likeness of God. So they just don’t feel like they’re worthy or God is interested, or God cares, or they have maybe reached out to God in faith and have not had answers. You know, there’s so many of those possibilities.
James Early:
How would you talk to somebody? What ideas might you share? Or what have you found helpful in working with people that are maybe wrestling with some of those kinds of issues?
Comparisons are not helpful
Jennifer Sakata:
Yeah, I mean, I think the reality is we all have this. This will be an image that goes back a little bit, maybe dates both of us, but we all have this Rolodex right in our head. To use maybe a more common example, we’re all scrolling Pinterest or Instagram or Facebook, and we almost can’t help ourselves but compare ourselves to other people.
Or even sometimes comparing ourselves today to the person who we were a week ago or a while ago. But constantly we’re coming up short. And the reality is, it’s true, when God is the standard, we’re always going to come up short. Right. But read the Psalms.
You are valuable to God
Jennifer Sakata:
God isn’t surprised about the snippy, snappy way I responded earlier this morning. There wasn’t anything about that that took God off guard. He wasn’t put off by my internal conversation with Him sitting around the campfire saying, “No, I don’t want to forgive her. She doesn’t deserve to be forgiven.”
God kept moving toward me with what’s true. And what’s true is that I’m valuable enough to God that I’m worth the time for me to let go of the bitterness so that I can be reconnected. But here’s the key. Not only am I worth that much to God, but so is my mother.
When someone offends you
Jennifer Sakata:
So is the person who has offended you. So is the person you can’t even conceive of imagining. You and I, we’ve both interviewed lots of people. And this season on Living the Grace Life, we’ve been talking about when grace is hard to come by. And that was a big part of our conversation together.
So many of us, we have this list of people or things we just can’t let go of. But then we’ve got to go back to another passage I was thinking about as we were talking earlier. This is in Colossians.
Jennifer Sakata:
I just want to read a little bit.
James Early:
Yeah, sure.
Listening to what the Bible says to you
Jennifer Sakata:
Especially The Bible Speaks to You, right? We’re gonna. We’re gonna let the Bible speak to us right here.
James Early:
Let’s do it.
Jennifer Sakata:
Let’s do it. Okay, so this is Colossians, Chapter 3, verses 12 and following. And if I could show you my Bible, it’s like got all kinds of colors and underlines because I have to come back to this truth all the time. Here’s what it says in verse 12. “Since God chose you…” In other words, this wasn’t an accident that God came toward you. He did this intentionally. Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves.
God chose you…
Jennifer Sakata:
I mean, we could stop right there, right? If we could put our whole lives around that one little phrase, what difference would it make? Okay, now I’ll get back to the Scripture. “Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” That one’s double underlined in my Bible.
And here’s the key. Verse 13. “Make allowance for each other’s faults and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.”
Jennifer Sakata:
“And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body, you are called to live in peace.” And then in case we have trouble with that, or maybe we think we’ve accomplished that, then Paul gives us one more directive “and always be thankful.”
Gratitude and redemptive grace
Always be thankful. What allows me to express gratitude? The fact that I belong to God. So if that doesn’t lead us in how our forgiveness is intimately connected to forgiving another person, let’s go again back to belonging. So we go to Psalm 139. If anyone who’s listening right now, if you’re not sure what God thinks about you, go to Psalm 139.
Jennifer Sakata:
It is clear that there is not a crack or a crevice in this side of eternity where God is not pursuing after you. That’s how much He loves you. That’s what He is willing to do and where He will go to be with you and yours. And my job is simply to turn around, which ultimately that’s.
I mean, that brings us to another theological term, metanoia, repentance. It’s where we turn from that lie or that pursuit that is not leading us closer to God, and we simply turn our eyes back to God. That’s where we find our belonging. And when we are rooted in that place of belonging, it gives us power beyond ourselves to then extend forgiveness and welcome to people who don’t deserve it either.
Feeling connected
James Early:
I want to say a quick aside here. I heard several times in the last several years. I haven’t done the research myself, but several people have said that the reason for so much addiction is not hereditary, it’s not genetic. It’s not all these things. It’s mostly because people don’t feel a sense of community somewhere. They don’t feel that sense of belonging, and so they get addicted to fill in the blank. It could be drugs or alcohol.
James Early:
It could be pornography. It could be chocolate cake.
Jennifer Sakata:
Control, right?
James Early:
Relationship control. So this whole idea of grace connected with belonging to God and then being part of His family, we’re all connected ourselves as His children. That’s the most powerful, most significant, substantial relationship, sense of belonging that is possible. I’ve met people who were, I’ll use the word, healed. Healed of addiction, of one thing or another. They may not use the word grace. Often they do, but it’s a sense of they felt seen by God. They felt cared for.
Redemptive grace is being relationship with God
James Early:
They somehow felt in relationship. And that was what helped them resolve those issues. I want to get back to Jesus here for just a minute. Because he reached out to these kind of people that were struggling.
Jennifer Sakata:
Yeah.
James Early:
That had all these kinds of issues we’re talking about. What do you think it was that Jesus saw in the prostitutes, the tax collectors who were considered miserable sinners because they had gone over to work with the Romans? They were traitors to their faith, the people who were not living pristine, righteous lives. He went and had dinner with them. What did he see in them that allowed him, that empowered him, that impelled him to do that?
Redemptive grace in real life
Jennifer Sakata:
You asked earlier about the distinction between grace as a theological idea and what I talk about a lot, that, you know, real grace for your real life. And I don’t presume to read the mind of Jesus by any stretch, but what all those people had in common is they were people who acknowledged, or could acknowledge, or were on the journey of acknowledging that they did not have in themselves what their souls needed most.
And that was the problem with the Pharisees and the Sadducees and their religious leaders. They came with what they perceived as all the answers. The woman at the well, in the beginning of her conversation, she had a lot of answers, too. But what I love about her story is she was a woman of great faith. They have their conversation. You know, “I am a Samaritan. You’re a Jew. Why are you asking me for water? And besides, where would you get your rope and your bucket?” when he starts talking about living water.
Jennifer Sakata:
And then he asks where her husbands are, which a lot of people look at that part of the passage as kind of a, “I’m going to let you know that I know what I know so that you know that I know what I know.” Not at all in that culture and day. He was actually offering her protection: “Bring your husband so that we can have this conversation.” But what it also did was begin to reveal her thirst. And it wasn’t so he could point the finger at her. It was so that he could invite her to something she needed.
The Samaritan woman was thirsty for truth
Jennifer Sakata:
And what I love about her story is even after, you know, changing the channel to the latest episode of Jeopardy and saying, “Where’s the proper place to worship?” she stayed in the conversation. Why? Because she was thirsty. Because she was hungry. Because she knew there was something inside her that was longing for something she could not give herself. And then Jesus does this beautiful thing. He reveals himself as the messiah to her of all the people he could have talked to in her village. He talks to a woman who had been canceled by an entire community of people who went to the well at the heat of the day because she was done hearing everybody else’s gossip.
Jennifer Sakata:
And Jesus reveals himself as messiah to her, a woman who knew she was thirsty. So I think that’s the distinction between on-the-ground grace and grace as a theological idea. On-the-ground grace begins in many ways with our acknowledging that we need it.
James Early:
I love that there’s several places in the Bible that says, Jesus looked at the multitudes and he was moved with compassion.
Jennifer Sakata:
Yes, yes.
James Early:
And then he reached out and healed them, ministered to them, whatever it was. But he was moved with that compassion. That, to me, is grace on-the-ground. That’s not a theological debate.
Willingness to see and receive redemptive grace
Jennifer Sakata:
Yeah, but we have to be willing to see that. We have to be willing to receive it. And that’s why so many of us live with this theological idea of grace that we hear on Sunday morning, like the Charlie Brown episodes. Right. You know, you hear that narrator in the back. “Wa, wa, wa, wa, wa.” And you hear the word “grace” because you know that’s what you’re supposed to be living. “Wa, wa, wa, wa wa, Grace, wa, wa, grace.”
Jennifer Sakata:
Well, what good is that? It’s just a concept, an idea. Until Monday morning when you’ve just yelled at your kids because they didn’t do X Y thing. And you realize, “Gosh, they were having a rough morning, too. Hey, kiddo, come on over here. We need to revisit for a second. Can. Can we try this again?”
James Early:
Yeah.
Jennifer Sakata:
That’s the movement from a theological concept to on the ground, grace. And it’s because we acknowledge that we have a need, but we also acknowledge that God has the capacity and desire to fill that need.
What Jesus saw in the Samaritan woman
James Early:
Yes, I love that. And I want to come back to the story of the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob. Think what Jesus saw in her. He knew. I think he could read her mind. It says other places. He knew their thoughts. He knew she was thirsty.
James Early:
He kind of played with her a little bit. You know, he toyed with her, but he knew there was receptivity there, and he brought it out. He gave her an opportunity. He led her in a way that they got to that part of the conversation pretty quickly.
Jennifer Sakata:
We lose sight of that because we’re reading it in John chapter four. To us, it looks relatively long because it’s the longest conversation we have recorded in the New Testament. But you’re right. When you think about a conversation, it was pretty fast moving.
James Early:
It went from “Get me some water” to “I’m the Messiah.”
Jennifer Sakata:
Yes, exactly.
We have the mind of Christ
James Early:
Okay, so I’m gonna make a proposition here. Now, I’m gonna come back to something you said earlier. Said you can’t read the mind of Jesus, but Paul says “we have the mind of Christ.” 1 Corinthians, 2:16, I think.
Jennifer Sakata:
Yeah, you’re right.
James Early:
We have the mind of Christ. So now, that doesn’t mean we always use it.
Jennifer Sakata:
And I didn’t put it there. He put it there.
James Early:
Right, exactly. But, yeah, we have access to that. And I think sometimes we’re closer to that, to the degree we’re imbibing the mind of Christ. I like to call it the mindset of Jesus, the way he was thinking and loving people. Yeah, I love that we become more discerning when someone’s thirsty. Like Jesus saw in this woman. He knew who was receptive of the people of his day, whether it was a, you know, the lowest person of the outcasts of society, or he sometimes talked to the Pharisees because they were receptive.
Jennifer Sakata:
Like Nicodemus. Yeah.
Embracing the mindset of Jesus
James Early:
Yeah. So the more we embrace the grace of Christ in our own lives, in our own minds, we become more like Jesus, and we can start seeing people this way and helping people the way Jesus did in a degree. So I just love the way you brought that out. He was so perceptive of that. But we can begin to do that too. And I think that’s important to remember.
Jennifer Sakata:
Yeah.
James Early:
And if it requires us, like you said, you know, you yelled at your kid this morning and say, “Oh, here come. Let’s, let’s reset this. Let’s, let’s try again.” That’s expressing that grace because you, you’re seeing a higher way.
Jennifer Sakata:
You know, I think sometimes we kind of complicate things as well. Right. I would suspect that most of us can walk in a room and if we did a scan of all the people in the room, if we spent 30 seconds literally looking intently at people, I am pretty confident that most of us would be able to identify the one or two people in that room whose hearts are heavy. Right. But it requires that we take the time to do that. And that’s kind of, that’s what I heard you saying just a few moments ago, that we also can open ourselves up to see what’s there. If we’re willing to do that.
Redemptive grace includes setting aside your own perspectives
James Early:
Yeah. And like all our hopes and plans and our opinions, we have to set aside our own perspectives sometimes to do that. Well, and you talk a lot about creating space for grace, slowing down and creating space, I guess, to be aware of the fact that grace is there. You know, if, if we’re rushing through life, it’s hard to hold on to that quiet spiritual mentality.
Jennifer Sakata:
Yeah. Yeah. Grace does require our attention both in terms of our need for it, but also the places where someone else might need it. And if we’re moving quickly, it’s easy to lose sight of that. Actually, I’d love to share another part of my mom’s and my mother’s story, if that’s okay. I think this would be a great place.
James Early:
Yeah, please do.
Willingness to be with someone on their journey
Jennifer Sakata:
And I almost missed it, to be truthful, because I was in a hurry to get someplace else. I wanted to be some other place than where I sensed God moving me.
So, I lead worship for the children at our church. So I tend to walk into service a little bit later. My mother had moved out here. She moved out here a little more than a year ago, and she had been sitting in service and had had a couple of really difficult reality checks from some medical appointments earlier in the week. Our pastor and team, they were doing a series on the 12 disciples. And it just so happened that that morning the person preaching was talking about Matthew the tax collector.
Jennifer Sakata:
And he kept talking about how shame filled Matthew went through much of his life as a tax collector. He had betrayed his people he had cheated his people. You can’t hide that for very long. That leaks out in all kinds of ways, right? And so he was a man who, who must have lived with a very heavy heart.
Noticing when God’s redemptive grace shows up
So my mom is sitting listening, and I was distracted. I was thinking about other things and wanted to be in a different spot. But I had this sense as I was sitting beside her, she had gotten very still and very quiet.
Jennifer Sakata:
And I kept watching as she would wipe away what I thought maybe was a tear. And I was like, “Oh, Lord, what are you doing? Okay, all right, okay, I’m paying attention now.” And she had moved here because of some other issues that made it necessary for her to move closer to us.
We come to the end of the service and she turned to me and she said, “I grew up in a religious home. I heard about Jesus, but I’ve never heard about Jesus like that before.” And I could see that her heart was just torn in pieces. And part of our conversation a few days before was about shame that she had carried.
And I remember telling her, “Mom, you don’t have to carry that shame. I know it’s a lot for you to hear right now, so we can talk more about this later.”
Jennifer Sakata:
She was processing something else, and I said, “Do you want to let go of that shame? This is what I was talking about the other day. You don’t have to carry this anymore. Do you want to ask Jesus to forgive you and to start again?”
And she, with all the clarity of a 10 year old, true clarity, which she doesn’t always have, she said, “Yes.” And after a lot of years, I’m in my mid-50s, so more than 40 years of praying for my mother, I got to pray with her to receive life with Jesus. And I almost missed it because I wanted to be doing something else. But I got to sit beside my mother and offer her an invitation to life with Jesus in a way she had never experienced up to that point. Man, if that’s not redemptive grace, I don’t know what it is.
Watch what God is doing
Jennifer Sakata:
And like I said before, you don’t have to have a story like mine to be in the middle of God’s redemptive grace. We just have to slow down long enough to pay attention and to be willing to be part of it.
James Early:
That is so, so helpful. What I hear you saying is God’s redemptive grace is always there. We just don’t always notice it. Or we turned it into a theological argument or something, but it’s so real and so powerful and so present in our lives. We just have to be, we have to open our hearts to it. Wow. Coming back to Jesus, this is the thing. He expressed redemptive grace so often, so perfectly, over and over and over, even when somebody like Peter betrayed him.
Jennifer Sakata:
Yes.
James Early:
I never had thought of the time after the resurrection. They’re on the Sea of Galilee, and Jesus has had breakfast for them. And he says to Peter three times, you love me? Sort of to cancel out the three times he denied him. I never had connected that with grace. I’d connected it with redemption and forgiveness and cleaning the slate. But that was redemptive grace in action. It’s such a powerful example for them. But I think we need to use that as a metaphor for our own lives.
Jesus offered Peter redemptive grace
Jennifer Sakata:
Yeah. I’m just turning to John 21 right now. There’s a whole other layer of that that I absolutely love about that story that I didn’t see for a lot of years. So clearly there’s forgiveness there. Peter, do you love me? One for each of the times that Peter had denied him. So there’s redemption there. But the other part that I love about this, and this is what grace does. So grace not only pardons us, it not only affirms that we belong and have welcome with God and us with other people, but grace also empowers us with new work to do.
Jennifer Sakata:
Because what did Jesus say to Peter after the third time when Peter says, “Jesus, you know that I love you.”?
James Early:
He said it all three times. He said, go feed my sheep. Feed my lambs, feed my sheep.
Jennifer Sakata:
Mm. But this last time. Well, okay, I’m going to nerd out for just a second.
James Early:
Okay, go for it.
Different words for “love” in Greek
Jennifer Sakata:
I love this. This is my Greek nerd leaking out here. But when Jesus first asks, peter, do you love me? He uses the word agape for love. And the Greeks have several. Well, I think there’s more than four. But Koine Greek, which we have in our Bible, there are four words for love. And agape is the highest form of love. This is what Jesus poured out for us on the cross.
Jennifer Sakata:
This is ultimate sacrificial love. Storge love is love of belonging. It’s the kind of love that we experience when our family welcomes us into existence, whether they adopt us or they bring us home after having birthed us, whatever. But it’s that sense of belonging. And then eros, we all know that that’s the passionate love. And then phileo is brotherly love. This is that I got your back. I’m with you to the end.
Jennifer Sakata:
But it’s not quite agape love. So when Jesus asked “Peter, Peter, do you love me?” He starts with agape. In other words, “Peter, do you love me more than these? Do you love me enough to sacrifice your self?”
Ind Peter’s response, he uses phileo both times. And then the last time that Jesus says, “Peter, do you love me?” Jesus says, Do you phileo me? And I love that. Because Jesus goes to where Peter is. He’s not there yet at agape, but history tells us he got there. Yeah, right. Crucified on an upside down cross, he moved into agape love, but he didn’t get there until he began to live.
Redemptive grace reveals things for you to do
Jennifer Sakata:
The purpose that Jesus extended to him. When he said, “Feed my sheep,” all Peter could see were the ways that he had failed Jesus. But Jesus moved toward him and said, my grace is giving you a new purpose. Feed my sheep, take care of my people. And that’s exactly what he did.
James Early:
That is so powerful. I had been aware of that for a while too. And I had a guy on the podcast, oh, three or four years ago now, (see Episode 155: Aramaic in the New Testament with Roy Gessford) who was an Aramaic scholar. And in the Aramaic…
Jennifer Sakata:
Oh, my goodness.
James Early:
I don’t remember the order, but one time it’s “Feed my lambs.” One time it’s “Feed my ewes.”
Jennifer Sakata:
Yes.
James Early:
And “Feed my rams.” So it’s like the children, the men and the women, everyone, everybody.
Redemptive grace leaves no one out
Jennifer Sakata:
Nobody’s left out.
James Early:
Exactly.
Jennifer Sakata:
And that’s what grace does for us. It makes everything possible. That is every bit impossible for us. From Peter’s perspective, he had no purpose to serve God. He was on the outside edges of the kingdom based on his behavior. But that’s not how God defines kingdom work.
James Early:
Redemptive grace shows us what our purpose is.
Jennifer Sakata:
Yeah, yeah.
James Early:
It doesn’t just redeem us from the mess. It shows us this higher sense of purpose for bringing in the gospel, sharing the good news, talking about the whatever, however you want to describe that.
Are we supposed to be martyrs?
Now, I want to come back to something. You said that agape is that sacrificial love that’s willing to give your life. You know, some people are going to hear that and say, “Well, I’m not going to sacrifice my life.” How would you and I have responded? All of you listening right now. What if you’d been back in that time period where sometimes declaring that you were a believer in Christ meant you would be executed? I mean, it’s hard to imagine there are places in the world today, actually where that’s happening with some Christians. But how can we have that sense of deep agape love? And it doesn’t mean, we’re gonna be a martyr, be a martyr. So what’s the difference? Yeah.
Jennifer Sakata:
Yeah.
James Early:
You know, that scares people off. I think there’s more of a… maybe it’s the sacrificing of our own personal opinions, our own guilt and shame. All these, you know, the old man that Paul talks about, Put off the old man. Put on the new man in Ephesians, Chapter 4. That’s the way I kind of see that sacrificial love. You can’t give up who you are as an image and likeness of God, but you can give up your negative opinions about yourself and other people.
James Early:
I’d love to hear your thoughts on that.
Don’t dismiss agape love
Jennifer Sakata:
I think that’s exactly right, James. And I appreciate you calling that out because that would make agape easy to dismiss if it is this martyrdom type of activity, “Well, I am not going to do that.”
So, when I was in college, just after college, I served with Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship, which is a collegiate ministry. And we had something called an agape meal. And I remember the gal I was serving under, she was my mentor, our head campus staff. And we were going to have this meal.
Jennifer Sakata:
And there were only three rules to the meal. This was with our leadership team. You were not allowed to feed yourself. You were not allowed to say, “No thank you,” and you are not allowed to say, “I’d like that, please.”
James Early:
Oh, no.
Agape in action
Jennifer Sakata:
Can you imagine going to dinner like that? Right. So there are all these different finger foods and whatnot. It was one of the most powerful and practical experiences of agape I can imagine, because for an hour and a half, each of us was called to be attentive to the other leaders in our room. And we would literally feed one another. Well, in order to do that, you have to put aside your desire to be fed. We were all pretty hungry, but we had to put aside what we wanted and needed in those moments to be attentive to what the person in front of us needed. We can communicate a lot with our eyes: “Yes, I would like that. No, I would not like that.”
Jennifer Sakata:
But we have to be attentive. And it was almost sacred in the end because it was this practice of paying so much attention to the person in front of us that we literally forgot our own needs.
James Early:
Wow. I love the word attentive there. Usually we’re very attentive to our needs.
Jennifer Sakata:
Yes. And that’s what’s the difference between those different levels of love, the first three, everybody comes by those naturally. And all of those to some degree, they’re in our own control. But agape love, that is a love that is only supplied by God and is only possible when we will receive it from him to give to another.
Loving others with God’s love
James Early:
That is so absolutely true. I tell people in my prison ministry all the time. Cause they’re people in the prison, you know, they don’t get along with others. I said, “Well, you have to love them like Jesus would love them.” They said, “I can’t do that.” I said, “Okay, you’re right, you can’t.”
James Early:
I said, “Quit trying to love them. You just see how God is loving them. Love them with that love.” The human mind, the human heart cannot manufacture that kind of love.
Jennifer Sakata:
Yeah, yeah.
James Early:
And Jesus said (I love this; this is so inspiring to me): I mean, on everything he said, “I can’t do anything by myself. I only do what I see the Father do.” I’m kind of paraphrasing somewhere in John, “I only do what I see the Father do.”
Jennifer Sakata:
Yeah.
Jesus saw God’s love for all mankind
James Early:
That means Jesus saw God loving the social outcasts, loving the hypocritical Pharisee. He could see God loving them first. So, okay, well, if you can do it, Father, then I can do it too. That’s the only way we can really love someone. Because a personal love is just that. It’s like that filet o. It’s just, hey, you’re my good buddy or you’re not.
Jennifer Sakata:
It’s like I get to decide.
James Early:
Yeah.
Jennifer Sakata:
I make the parameters.
James Early:
Right? Yeah.
Jennifer Sakata:
So like if you’re care-taking agape love in care-taking, or maybe you’re raising very young children. I mean, moms of 2 year olds!
James Early:
Need a lot of grace,
We have all the grace we need
Jennifer Sakata:
Every bit of it. But that’s supplied beyond us. But when we’re willing to give out beyond ourselves, those are practical ways of extending agape. Or maybe you have a teenage son or daughter who is trying to figure out what it looks like to be their own individual self and it leaks out in their tone of voice or their argumentative nature or ways that they just seem to be combative. Well, agape love calls us to recognize, “Okay, my child.” That child is working through something that has nothing to do with me. So can I extend them an extra ounce of patience? Like, you know, back to Colossians 3? I triple underlined that in my Bible. Well, agape love means taking, receiving from the well, the Jesus well.
James Early:
Right.
Jennifer Sakata:
Rather than the Jacob well. Right. That has everything to do with what I bring to the surface. So I fill in the blank. Like I said, you’re a parent of teens or of young children, you’re care-taking, you’re in prison ministry. What does it look like? And you said this earlier. I loved this. The on ramp, I think, to agape love is what does it look like to see that person, how God sees that person.
James Early:
Right.
Jennifer Sakata:
That’s one of my takeaways from this conversation. I think that is the beginning of agape love. Can I see this person as God sees this person? Because that changes everything.
Realizing you need God’s redemptive grace
James Early:
It totally does. So let’s say someone’s listening here right now and they realize, okay, I know that I need more grace in my life. We all do. But, you know, you have this moment. Is there something practical, some practical step or idea or thing they can do, a practical step they can take today, in the next day or so that can help them move a step closer to this grace we’re talking about?
Jennifer Sakata:
You know, when I am struggling with being gracious to myself or to the people around me, as I mentioned earlier, I come back to this Colossians 3 passage. And it wasn’t an accident that Paul finished that little section with “and in everything give thanks.” Because when we are nurturing gratitude in our lives, it frees us up from keeping score either about ourselves or about the people who have offended us. And so I find a very practical on ramp to grace is to write a list of gratitudes. And I used to write my gratitudes, like 1 through 10, and, you know, the next day 1 through 10. But I started doing a cool thing several years ago. I have no idea what number I’m in now. It’s way high.
Gratitude brings redemptive grace to you
Jennifer Sakata:
But I started numbering consecutively, so I would think about something specific that I was grateful for. And it might be, I’m grateful for the colors of the sunset last night that stilled my soul. Right? Or maybe it’s, oh, it was so fun to see those cardinals making a nest just outside our window, which they were earlier. That really slowed my heart down and I was very anxious. So I’m thankful about that. Or I’m thankful for this conversation with James today, where even I, too, have clarification of what it looks like to live the grace life. So starting to write and identify places of gratitude, and then the next time I make my list pick up. So you do 1 through 10, then the next set is 11 through 20.
Jennifer Sakata:
And literally, James, I’m sure I’m well over into it. I kind of haven’t done it in a little bit, but I think the last one that I had numbered was in the thousands when I see that number, thousands, when I see that those are all the places where God has moved toward me. And when my heart has been nurtured in gratitude, then I have even more space to receive the grace that I need and then be able to extend it to the people around me.
It sounds counterintuitive, like gratitude. Does that really make us more open to grace? But in my experience, it does, 100%. And then getting outside, changing your space when I am struggling to extend grace to somebody else, rather than continuing the downward spiral of the conversation, take a pause, take a break, go for a walk. Give them a break, Go for a walk. Because so much of our un-grace is because we’re so busy in our mind keeping score about something or expectations that haven’t been met.
What are you focusing on?
Jennifer Sakata:
That’s what we’re focusing on. But when we get outside and we go for a walk, our focus turns to what God has created. It turns to the ways that God has moved toward us, which in turn helps me move towards someone else, even if that someone else is myself.
James Early:
Right, right. Okay, this is the question I have. Let’s say someone is well healed, so to speak. Let’s say someone is very spiritually minded, very gracious all the time. You know, they’re really living a beautiful spiritual life. They’re not going through a bunch of drama. They’re not causing a bunch of drama for other people. How can God’s redemptive grace be active in their lives? What does that look like in a life that is already so full with the richness of God’s grace?
Admitting your need for redemptive grace
Jennifer Sakata:
I think a big part of it is acknowledging it. Back to that gratitude again. I don’t mean to keep beating the same drum, but I think part of receiving grace is recognizing that we have a need for it, but it’s also acknowledged when we have received it. None of us is a graduate of grace, but I think all those small steps of acknowledging the places that God has moved toward us, they equip us for those bigger moments when we do lose it, when we are not as steady in living the grace life, then we can come back and remember that’s not who I want to be, but it’s also not who God has dreamed for me to be. So then it’s a little bit easier for me to take that next step to receive his grace and to try again and not keep beating myself up about it. Does that make sense?
James Early:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think the more grace we have in our lives, the more other people will feel that and they’ll experience it from the way we express it and maybe Maybe that’s the answer to my question is if you’re in that kind of a space, you’re going to be more and more like Jesus. Helping other people, helping them discover grace.
Jennifer Sakata:
Doesn’t mean that we’ve arrived, but it’s a journey.
James Early:
We’re on the path.
Jennifer Sakata:
Yes.
James Early:
Yeah.
Living in grace filled space
Jennifer Sakata:
And I think one thing that just occurred to me too, that if I am living more regularly in this grace filled space, then I begin to recognize more quickly when I’m not. And instead of it being threatening to me and going down this path of “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I said that. I can’t believe I did that. I can’t believe she said that. I can’t believe she did that.” When our default is more gracious, we are quick to allow the Holy Spirit to course correct us when we get off than either defending ourself or accusing someone else or of being judgmental. I think it, it’s not that we don’t experience times when we’re ungracious. I think we recognize our need for it and we can accept it more quickly.
Jennifer Sakata:
I think maybe that’s it.
James Early:
Yeah, I love that. So I’m going to extend an invitation to everyone listening and for you and me as well. I know you’re already doing this with your gratitude list, but wherever you are on your spiritual journey, however much grace you feel like you need or maybe you’ve got enough, wherever you are, think of the things that you’re grateful for that really opens your heart to receive more of God’s grace.
Jennifer Sakata:
Oh, I love it. It’s a good reminder to me. I love this.
What will go on your gratitude list?
James Early:
Yeah, let’s all think of something before you go to bed tonight. Think of at least five things you’re grateful for or all throughout the day. Whatever works for you. Just rejoice in that gratitude. Jennifer, we’re going to close up here in just a few minutes.
Jennifer Sakata:
Oh, this has been great.
James Early:
Is there anything that I haven’t asked? Is there anything that you think is really important about grace that we didn’t have time to touch on or that you want to maybe just re emphasize that we did talk about? Or maybe is there something that you wish more people would think about or ask you about grace that they don’t?
Going deeper into God’s redemptive grace
Jennifer Sakata:
You know, we’ve been talking about this throughout our conversation, but something I don’t think we’ve touched quite as directly. And I don’t want to misquote, but I think that it is Dallas Willard who said that grace doesn’t require no work from us. I’m totally butchering this right now. Another guest on my podcast had actually shared this a number of weeks ago, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Because sometimes we think of grace as this pass. Like we just ignore something or we just let it go. And sometimes grace does call us to let go of things. But grace doesn’t mean you and I don’t have some work to do.
Jennifer Sakata:
We have to acknowledge that we need what we don’t have in ourselves. But there is still work for us to do. We still need to tell someone that we’re sorry. We still need to receive their apology. We still need to go to the ice cream shop and tell them, “I forgive you,” regardless of what their response is. So grace doesn’t mean you and I don’t have work to do. It’s not a rubber stamp that all is well and good. We do have a response to make, but it’s a response that we’re called to make, rooted in God’s movement toward us.
Redemptive grace is no guarantee of reconciliation
Jennifer Sakata:
And then the other thing that we haven’t talked about yet, which I think is critical, and we do talk about this a fair bit on my podcast, is one of the myths of grace, of forgiveness, is that reconciliation will always take place. We can forgive our person without being in close proximity to them. In some cases, we forgive people who have died, or in some cases, we forgive people who are not safe for us to be around.
Forgiveness has everything to do with our relationship with God first. And so sometimes grace doesn’t mean that we will necessarily be reconciled to another human. What it does mean is that we will be returned to the Father who’s writing my story and writing that person’s story. So I would say those two things, we do have work to do. But also sometimes grace doesn’t require or lead to reconciliation, but it always brings us back to the Father.
James Early:
So beautifully put. Thank you.
Jennifer Sakata:
Yeah.
Honoring Jennifer
James Early:
Jennifer, I want to honor you for all the people that you’ve reached and touched with your podcast, all the people you’ve ministered to over many years. God bless you and your mom. The way that relationship has blossomed has [?]. Blossomed. I just want to honor you for the touch of grace that you’ve brought to what you’re doing in the world, and you’ve blessed so many people by that. I’m just so grateful that we’re friends, and I feel blessed by the grace you’ve brought, not just to this conversation, but to all of my contacts with you. So I just want to honor you for that.
Jennifer Sakata:
Thank you.
James Early:
Yeah, you’re welcome. I’m so grateful that we’re buddies.
Jennifer Sakata:
Me too. I just wish we lived closer.
Three final questions
James Early:
Yeah, that would be helpful. So I have three final questions I ask all my guests. The first one is, if you could talk to any Bible character other than Jesus, who would it be and what would you ask them?
Jennifer Sakata:
Oh, gosh, I should have known you were going to ask this because I’ve listened to your podcast, so of course I knew this, but I was not prepared. Well, she’s one of my favorites, the woman at the well.
James Early:
There you go.
Jennifer Sakata:
I would love. I can’t wait to talk to her one day. What would I ask her? You know, I think I would want to know what it was like for her in that moment when Jesus said, I’m the Messiah. Like, in our day, we would call that a mic drop moment. Right, right. But I would love to know what was going through her mind when Jesus revealed himself to her. What an incredible affirmation that must have been for her to hear him say that to her, of all people. I’d love to hear her talk about that.
James Early:
Oh, nobody has ever answered the question that way before.
Jennifer Sakata:
Oh, yeah, I love that.
Question 2
James Early:
Okay, here’s the second question. Is there any Bible character you especially identify with?
Jennifer Sakata:
Oh, Peter for sure. Hands down. Didn’t even have to think about. That’s why I know that John 21 passage so well. He is a guy. He just says… he’s impetuous and he just blurts things out and he does things and he’s so eager, but doesn’t always think about the ramifications. And he is like, all in. And then he’s like, all, “Oh, gosh, I really messed that one up pretty good.”
Jennifer Sakata:
I feel like there’s a lot of Peter I can relate to. I don’t think of myself as a particularly impetuous person, but as a verbal processor. I’m like. I’m like, all in a lot, and I don’t always count the cost. And then I’m like, oh, oh, dear. Yeah, now I’m in a lot deeper than I can manage. So up goes the hand. Lord, will you please help me?
Question 3
James Early:
Oh, goodness. Here’s the third question. The Bible speaks to You Podcast is about getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus. How would you describe Jesus’s original message of how he wanted us to live our lives?
Jennifer Sakata:
You belong. You are welcome here. It’s that forward movement. Jesus coming at all. Yes, it was practical. It was to save us. Yes, it was to make our connection with God possible. But it’s Back to Genesis 1 and 2, it’s “You are welcome.”
Jennifer Sakata:
You belong. I want you. I think in simple terms, that’s really the gospel that God says, “I want you.”
James Early:
Wow. I love that. That is so powerful and it’s so true.
Jennifer Sakata:
But it’s easy to lose sight of, right? In everyday life.
God wants you at His table
James Early:
Yeah. God wants us at His table.
Jennifer Sakata:
Yes. I love that table image. Yeah, that’s a good one.
James Early:
All right, Jennifer, thank you so much for your time. I’ve just enjoyed every minute of this.
Jennifer Sakata:
You are welcome.
Contact info
James Early:
I’m sure my listeners have enjoyed it too. What’s the best way for people to connect with you?
Jennifer Sakata:
Well, as you mentioned, I do have a podcast, Living the Grace Life Podcast, so you can find me on any streaming platform, but you can also reach me on my website, jennifersicata.com. If you have a women’s event where you’d love to chat about grace in real life, you can find me at jennifersicata.com/speaking. And you can find me on my socials @jennifersicata. I’m mostly on Instagram, Facebook, and I’m trying to get on YouTube, but that’s a little bigger journey.
James Early:
Well, thank you so much. It’s just been such a delight to spend some time with you and really deep dive into this whole idea of redemptive grace. And it’s just wonderful to hear the overflowing in your heart. I really appreciate it.
Jennifer Sakata:
Thanks so much for having me, James. This has been a gift today.
James Early:
All right, take care.
Jennifer Sakata:
You too.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Photo credit: Thomas Le
Jennifer Sakata is a grace-filled truth-teller who meets you at the corner of real grace meets real life. With warmth, wit, and a deep well of authenticity, Jennifer nurtures connection and inspires transformation in life with God and others. She equips the overwhelmed and full-plated among us to move beyond simply knowing about grace—to actually living it. As host of Living the Grace Life podcast, Jennifer invites listeners to discover that grace isn’t just a theological idea—it’s a lifeline for the beautifully chaotic, real-world moments we all navigate.
Her favorite moments are the sacred ones—when someone catches a glimpse of God’s grace actively rewriting their story.
Jennifer is a contributing author to the quarterly magazine Journey with Maker as well as five devotionals, including El Roi: The God Who Sees and Trusting God: 31 Days, 31 Women, 31 Stories, One God. She lives the grace life, cheering on her teenage boys to embarrassment, sipping chai, and cycling the neighborhoods in Washington, IL with her husband Craig and their two Earthside sons, Ethan and Seth.
Freebie: Growing the Grace Life: One Prayer at a Time https://subscribepage.io/GraceLifePrayers
Website: https://jennifersakata.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jennifersakata/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JenniferSakata.Author/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jennifersakata
Podcasts:
- Living the Grace Life: https://jennifersakata.com/living-the-grace-life/
- Joy: In & Out of Season limited 4-episode podcast: https://jennifersakata.com/living-the-grace-life/
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James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and church mentor. He conducts Bible workshops online and in person. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by learning to think, pray, and love like Jesus. Contact him here.
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Bible References
Ephesians 2:8 NIV
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
Genesis 1:26 NIV
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:
Colossians 3:12-15 NIV
12 Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.
13 Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.
14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.
15 And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.
Matthew 14:14 KJV
And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.
John 4:4+ NLT
1 Corinthians 2;16 NIV
16 …we have the mind of Christ
John 21:15-17 NIV
15 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
16 Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”
17 The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.
Ephesians 4:22 NIV
22 … put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts,
John 5:19 NIV
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
