And They Call it Grace

“Have mercy upon me, 0 God, according to Your loving kindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.” (from Psalm 51)

        “Who is a God like You, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain his anger for ever because He delights in mercy. He will again have compassion on us, and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will give truth to Jacob and mercy to Abraham, which You have sworn to our fathers from days of old.” (from Micah 7:18-20)

        “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” (from Ephesians 2:4-8)

        “Come now, and let us reason together,” says the LORD, “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” (from Isaiah 1:18)

        “Moreover the law entered that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” (from Roman, 5:20)

        There will be no seeking for grace and mercy until a person is conscious, sensitive and strongly aware of their own personal guilt of sin. Until the conscience hurts there is no seeking for relief found within forgiveness.

        You will not ask for grace until there is a sense and awareness of sin guilt before God. You will not long for mercy until you plead guilty of sin and violation of the law of God, because you know with certainty that you have indeed sinned against the Lord of heaven and earth, and know within the heart and conscience that you are unworthy because of that sin, and as you plead guilty (at least within your own mind if nowhere else) you know you can go no where else but to GOD for mercy and grace.

        People are not receptive to the idea of grace and mercy until they know the inner burden of sin guilt. Why should a person be interested in receiving something that is of no interest to them? Why should you be interested in a gift when you think you have everything you already want and need?

        On the other side ... once you know of your guilt, once you know of your unworthiness, once you know what you deserve as punishment … then all of a sudden you know the cry for mercy and grace even though you may feel you don’t even deserve any grace or mercy. If you condemn yourself, plead guilty before God, and have an inner awareness of the need to be pardoned and reconciled to God, know you need what God’s forgiveness offers, and fear God’s wrath and justice, then Divine pardon can become a reality, at least you can see how it is available to you personally. Self- abhorrence and acknowledgment of sin guilt have to be in place before the door to grace and mercy can be unlocked.

        When you read the law of Christ, you can see what sin is, and what things are sinful. What you paid little attention to might in reality be an abomination to God. What you thought was just a bad thing might in reality be something very evil and wicked in the eyes of God. What you considered something to be a little wrong might in truth be a horribly filthy act of willful sin as far as God is concerned. The law of Christ displays, exposes, reveals what sin is as far as God sees it. In the presence of the perfect standard of holiness all your imperfections can be seen for what they really are.

        The words of Christ and His inspired writers of the New Testament make you realize there is no excuse for sinning. Jesus said, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they had not had sin; but now they have no excuse for their silt” (John 15:22). Sin carries, produces, and involves major guilt before the Lord, and then, you add to that the fact that when you committed sin you knew it was sin before you did it. And then when the words of Jesus are really evaluated it makes clear the comparison between the will of God and the will of Satan. The law strips away every excuse we make for sinning, every alibi we give for enjoying it, every love we have for what God hates. Sin is indeed a rebellion against the authority of God, the authority of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and the authority of the Bible.

        So often what God commands, people refuse; what God forbids, people desire; what God warns against becomes an attraction to indulge

in. So many times the mind has an enmity toward God that causes people delight in what actually provokes the anger of God because of their desire for freedom from the restraints of God. Self-will rejects God’s will. The unspiritual mind, the sinful pleasure filled head is not drawn to holiness, righteousness and godly activity. And the heart addicted to sins, in servitude to sin, is not easily attracted to submission in the areas where God demands self-discipline, self-control and subduing the sinful desires of the heart.

        The Lord God of heaven demonstrated the majesty of His holy justice yet at the same time demonstrated the full beauty and glory of grace and mercy ... at the cross of Jesus Christ. The cross reveals more about the holy love of God than can be seen anywhere else in all of creation, in all of God’s other acts or works of dealing with human beings or in all the manifestations of His attributes and nature which are discussed in Bible Scripture.

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