Grace that is greater than all our sin
is some pretty outstanding grace! That
one-syllable word flows off our tongues like the first taste of our favorite
ice cream on a hot summer day. It’s a
pleasant thought. We all want
grace. We will accept it when it’s
offered, but do we really even begin to comprehend the immensity of the grace
we are offered by God?
Mercy is
not getting what you deserve, and grace is getting far more than you
deserve. When we really enter into grace
most fully we come to see more of the beauty of God. Receiving grace won’t leave you boasting
about getting what you don’t deserve; it will leave true grace
can only result in turning the focus from what we get that we don’t deserve to
what a gracious God is who gives so abundantly and fully in ways we could never
have imagined! There is no boasting in
grace. When we are proud of what we have
in God, we are not expressing the fullness of what it means to receive grace by
faith.
Grace
calls us to have the highest possible view of God and ourselves. In the midst of a sinful world we discover a
truth that sin had no power to overcome—that is God’s love for us and His
insistence that we can live in this world even in this sin-filled world with
purpose and intimacy with Him. This
dance of faith and grace intertwines to produce a result that is miraculous. We sinful creatures do truly good works. Work is a part of grace. Every single person of God has an unique work
to carry out in this place.
We
get it backwards on our Christian journey.
We crudely accept the grace, then roll up our sleeves and try to prove
why we are so worth the grace given.
Paul tells us to focus on faith in our great, wonderful, beautiful
God. He says worship the Gift-giver and
get yourself out of the way in order to know what grace is all about. Don’t even think about works you do. Come to realize that the Grace-giver gives
works because of His grace. He created
you to do good works on this earth. You
can only do those good works when you first live in the grace.
Grace
shows me that God is more amazing than I can ever comprehend. Grace transforms that way I see myself and
the way I see my purpose in this world.
I can spend my lifetime exploring the wonders of God’s graciousness!
you mesmerized at the wonder of the God who offers such
amazing grace!
Grace
forces us to get our focus off ourselves.
As Paul said so well in Ephesians 2:9-10: For it is by grace you have been saved,
through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no
one can boast. For we are God’s
handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in
advance for us to do.
Just
like our love for ice cream, we all love the idea of grace. Yet receiving
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© 2014. Deborah R. Newman teatimeforyoursoul.com All Rights Reserved.
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