Monday, March 23, 2009
Ephesians 2:4-5 Because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions -- it is by grace you have been saved.
GOD'S AMAZING GRACE: LET US REJOICE IN IT!
The Bible contains a number of words which are small in size but huge in meaning. One of these is the little word "grace." It is comprised of only five letters but, oh, how loaded with precious meaning for all of God's Christians! Grace is that quality which our heavenly Father possesses which moved Him to send His one and only Son into our world that we might live through Him. Even when we were His enemies, lost and perishing in sin, law-breakers who merited nothing good from Him except His wrath and displeasure, He provided a Way out of our hopeless predicament, so we might live with Him -- and for Him -- forever.
We have heard the story of God's grace in Christ numerous times (many of us, from the time we were knee high to a grasshopper). Because we've heard it often, perhaps it may be that some of its beauty is lost to us and we do not thrill to hear it as much as we once did (like the excitement over owning a new computer or refrigerator or other electronic gadget has a way of fading with the passage of time). Do we thrill to the sound of that little word "grace" as much as we did in years past, as much as our heavenly Father would have us do, in light of its wondrous, comforting meaning?
Our devotions this week will focus on the grace our Father has revealed to us in the person and work of His Son. May the Holy Spirit help us to share in the excitement and wonderment of Paul in the verse quoted above (and to recapture our excitement, if we have lost some of it), as we contemplate how blessed we are to have such a merciful God.
Grace first inscribed my name
In God's eternal book;
'Twas grace that gave me to the Lamb,
Who all my sorrows took.
(The Lutheran Hymnal, 374:3)
