Image Credit: forverandalways27
Grace...what is it? People can say grace. My daughter's middle name is Grace. Ultimately, grace is God's undeserving love given to us by Him because of Him and who He is and not because of us or who we are or what we do. We are sinners...we are fallen. He is pure, perfect, holy, good, loving, gentle, faithful, compassionate, loyal, humble, merciful, unchanging, fair and forgiving among many other things. Did you just read all of those beautiful words? Do you understand that all of those words are good and if God is all of those things...He too is good. He is good beyond any thing we know to be good. When you compare the two...sinner/fallen to all of the very words used just now to descibe God...they are opposite like darkness and light. We are in darkness...we are darkness. He is the light! So, if you look at the picture above, it reads..."It Makes No Sense, But This Is Grace". Don't you see...Grace makes absolutely no sense! It's almost beyond human understanding. God is so pure and so holy and so good and so perfect - why would He EVER want anything to do with us? Even the best person cannot come close to His goodness. I heard it best said by Lecrae, our good works are like filthy rags to God. That has always stuck with me. It is a powerful statement. Just when I think I am doing good and maybe I think I am better than her or him and I compare myself to one I may perceive as more fallen than me, that statement smacks me back down to reality. But for Him, I am NOTHING! Because of who God is...He loves me. Because of who God is...He desires me! He actually desires ME! He wants me to love Him. He wants me to choose Him. He wants me to desire Him. God wants so desperately to be loved by us. Do you understand that our filth will never let us be close to God? Our filth will never permit us to enter into his presence? We are saturated in darkness. Light and dark cannot mix. Do you understand that God's ultimate example and act of grace toward us was His son, Jesus? Do you understand that God didn't want us to perish...He didn't want us to be eternally separated from Him? However, because He created us to have free will and to be our own thinking people who make our own choices...we ultimately all sin and commit bad deeds. Sin is our nature. Sin is who we are. But, for God's grace we can be seen as perfect, holy, pure and clean just like Him. Because of God's grace we have a chance to be with Him. Because of God's grace we can approach him. God's ultimate act of grace = Jesus! He was a gift to us from God. He was sent ultimately to be a sacrifice for us. I am sure it is hard for many to understand, but according to Christian faith and the Holy Bible, Jesus Christ never once sinned. He was God in the flesh. He was not a sinner although He was tempted and He was a human. Back to grace...desperate for us to be with Him, God found the ONLY way for us to be with Him. He sent His son here to earth to die for us as prophesied in the bible and since the beginning of time. He came down and was set apart from the rest of the world because He never sinned...He was God's only son. God loved His son, but He also loved us. Yes, His son was to be sacrificed. He was born to be sacrificed for us...that was His purpose. Do you know why? His pureness is the ONLY thing that could cover us and wash us clean in the sight of God. Jesus is the truth and the life and nobody gets to the Father, but through Him. Grace is something we do not deserve and something we did not earn. Grace makes no sense! Jesus died as planned on the cross as an innocent man and as the Son of God...spotless. While He hung on that cross at Golgotha, our sins were all placed on Him. The purest of pure, the Holiest of holy, the spotless and sinless man was covered in our filth. God felt sin. Not only was His body dying, but His very soul and spirit were feeling filth and evil for the very first time. The pain was something we cannot even comprehend as it was not just a physical death. I often wonder if people grasp that the Holy of holy's was for a time covered in all of the evil acts, thoughts, lusts, etc that have ever occured and that will ever occur on this earth. The acts of murderers, pedophiles, rapists, satanists, liars, drunks, adulterers, thieves along with all other sins were put on our God! He felt that evil, He took it on for us! He did it out of love for us and He did it to be obedient to His Father. My mind is blown when I think about that. My heart aches when I think about what Jesus must have felt when he was so undeservingly put on that cross. I fall to my knees and thank Him for that sacrifice. I fall to my knees and I thank my Father for His sacrifice and His GRACE! That's how much He loves us. When Jesus bled, I was covered in and cleansed by His pure blood. When He was buried, my sins were buried with Him. At that moment, my choice to be my Father's was mine. Fast forward to now, I choose Him. I choose Jesus. I choose to accept what He freely gave me. The one and only thing I MUST do is understand, accept and confess what Jesus did for me on the cross at Calvary. I must know He is the Son of God and that he is my Savior which means that without His death, I would have no forgiveness or redemption. Now, I am seen as pure in God's sight. My Father can look on me. My Father can hear me. My Father and I can spend eternity together because of my choice to accept His gift of grace. Ultimately, grace = Jesus! Grace is FREE! There is nothing I could do more and nothing I could do less to make Him love me any more. That is grace! I am so grateful that I have the choice to spend eternity with my Father. I am so grateful that God's love for me doesn't depend on me. I am so grateful that He can look on me with love and see beauty. I am so grateful that because of what His son did for me, my wrongs are not held against me and they are forgiven. I am undeserving, but He loves me just the same. His grace is free to anyone and everyone who will accept it. It makes no sense and I cannot comprehend that kind of love, but it's real and it's there. Thank you Father for your grace, love and mercy toward me. Thank you for sending your very own Son as a sacrifice and payment for my sins. Thank you for giving me free will and I know and accept your Son as my Savior. I know that through Him and His shed blood, I am forgiven. Amen!
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