Echoes. Reflections of sound off of the hard surface of my soul. Never expect originality from an echo. These reverberations of encouragement originate from outside my life. I am only the interface. The source of the original acoustic is the spoken Word of The Word.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Grace to you and peace.
Amazing Grace (Photo credit: Leonard John Matthews)
Grace. Maybe you are familiar with the acrostic that is often used to help define the word grace; God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. It is used to remind us that the riches we receive freely from God were paid for by Christ. The gift that is free for us is free only because it was purchased by Someone else. That is part of the meaning, but there is more. This free gift, the riches at Christ’s expense, is God extending Himself to us. He IS the gift. He gives Himself. We settle too often for a diamond when God has provided the entire treasure box. We are far too easily pleased.
As I follow the word grace through the New Testament, I find Paul using it in the opening and closing of Romans, and Corinthians, and Galatians, and Ephesians, and Philippians, and Colossians, and Thessalonians, and Timothy, then Philemon. Grace is how he says hello. Grace is how he says good-bye. He extends it at the beginning, and at the end. The sheer repetition alone should cause us to pay attention to his practice of offering grace to believers, but I am captivated by his use at both ends of so many letters. He sandwiches his message with grace.
How would it look in my life if I sandwiched others with grace? What would happen if I habitually favored others from the very beginning, from the very first second of knowing them or knowing about them? And what if I graced them with favor even after I became acquainted with all their hurts, and pains, and brokenness? Freely I have received, freely I should give. Echoes of mercy. Whispers of love.
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“Marvelous grace of our loving Lord,
Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt!
Yonder on Calvary’s mount outpoured,
There where the blood of the Lamb was spilled.” ~Julia Johnston, Hymns Tried and True
Prayers to join you for a peanut-mercy and grace-y snack today good friend. Grace, Grace, God’s Grace!
Thank you. I absolutely need grace today…and I really need more than a snack…I need a feast. Why is it that we receive grace so abundantly, but hoard it so miserly? Your words remind me to carry a picnic box filled with grace sandwiches, ready to freely give. You have blessed my morning.