Great Grace
I was sitting in my office listening to Acts 4 and reading along with the scripture. When I heard the reader say, “And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.” I stopped the reading and just meditated on the term “great grace.” I thought, God, what is great grace?
I had an understanding of grace defined as God’s unmerited favor, giving us what we have not earned or deserved. I wanted to understand it better so I started researching grace. The more I researched, the more I began to understand. I found an article that said, “Grace is love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return. Grace is love coming at you that has nothing to do with you. Grace is being loved when you are unlovable.”
I love this quote that also I found: “Grace is most needed and best understood in the midst of sin, suffering, and brokenness.” We come to God with nothing in our hands to offer but our brokenness and sin and he gladly takes it and gives to us new life as His child.” (whatsinthebible.com) Right after I finished reading this, my girlfriend sent me a text with the scripture: Leviticus 1:2-5 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘When any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of livestock from the herd or from the flock.’ If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord. He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. Then he shall kill the bull before the Lord, and Aaron's sons the priests shall bring the blood and throw the blood against the sides of the altar that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting.” Jesus is our perfect sacrifice and it is by His great grace that we are accepted and receive eternal life.
As I reflected on great grace, the Holy Spirit showed me that grace comes with a price. Jesus paid the ultimate price for us to receive grace. I was reminded of an incident that happened to me in the grocery store. I was waiting at the deli counter to pick up a couple of items. Two ladies were ahead of me and I was standing in the middle of both of them waiting to be served. They were both being served. When the clerk finished serving his customer, he saw me standing there waiting and he walked right past me and went to the lady on the other side of me and asked if she was being helped. I stood there in shock that he would do that. The lady of course said that she was being helped and then he came back to me. My mind was still focused on the fact that he walked right past me; he skipped over me. Never mind that I was the only black person there and all the emotions from what we have seen on television recently came rushing forward to my mind. I gave him my order but all the emotion of what had just happened was wailing up inside of me. I did not react in any way. I just asked God to deal with me. When I received my stuff, I thanked him and walked away. As the Holy Spirit was playing this back in my mind He said I had the opportunity to show great grace because I could have given him $20.00 and thanked him for his service. The Holy Spirit said, “That is what great grace looks like.”
The Holy Spirit showed me that to give great grace in our daily walk does not feel good and it is not deserved. We want all the grace Jesus offers but we have no idea what it feels like to give it. He reminded me that it did not feel good to Jesus to die for us and take all our sin to the cross but that was great grace.
The next time you think of grace and mercy following you don’t forget to reflect on Him who paid the price for us to have that kind of backup!
Father, your word says grace and mercy follows us every day. They have our backs. For some reason we think that everything we do in this life is supposed to feel good and be the best ever for us. But that is simply not true. You called us to be your ambassadors and to do that we must offer grace which will not always feel good. Help us to cling to you as your word says acknowledging you in everything so that we don’t allow our flesh to act up when you are trying to get great grace out of us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Affirmations: Matthew 10:20; Luke 24:32; Ephesians 6:19, Isaiah 55:11
You can also follow me at JCCallingtv:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMoEcr3koSqRbqVma5EGWgA/videos
My recently published book Life’s Journey is now available at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08VYJKJ9K/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_6Z95ANB487AMDF3VTDP9