Day 15 - The Gospel in a Nutshell, Part 2 - 30 Days of Grace

We have seen that one way to say the Gospel in a Nutshell is by John 3:16 - God loved the world and so gave His Son to take away our death and give us His everlasting life.  What a wonderful message, that God takes away the ruinous effect of sin - death - and freely gives us the effect of His Son's presence  - everlasting life!  The Gospel is the good news that imparts life!  But before God can give us life, sin has to be dealt with and that is what Christ did for us on the cross.  Let's look at that aspect of the Good News now, how God took care of our sin problem:

¹⁸ But all things are from God, Who through Jesus Christ reconciled us to Himself [received us into favor, brought us into harmony with Himself] and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation [that by word and deed we might aim to bring others into harmony with Him].

¹⁹ It was God [personally present] in Christ, reconciling and restoring the world to favor with Himself, not counting up and holding against [men] their trespasses [but cancelling them], and committing to us the message of reconciliation (of the restoration to favor).

²⁰ So we are Christ’s ambassadors, God making His appeal as it were through us. We [as Christ’s personal representatives] beg you for His sake to lay hold of the divine favor [now offered you] and be reconciled to God.

²¹ For our sake He made Christ [virtually] to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in and through Him we might become [endued with, viewed as being in, and examples of] the righteousness of God [what we ought to be, approved and acceptable and in right relationship with Him, by His goodness].

    
2 Co. 5:21  AMP


<sup>First, all these things we are about to learn about the cross and what Jesus did there, who are they from?  They are from God.  How many of these aspects of the gospel are from God?  All of them!  That means the gospel is all about what God has done, not what we have to do.  The gospel is truly the good news of grace, for one meaning of grace is that God does it ALL, thus we don't have to do anything!

What is the first thing it mentions that God has done for us?  He reconciled us to Himself.  What does that word 'reconciled' mean?  It means He received us into favor and brought us into harmony with Himself!  This is the very ministry or message He has given us to share.  The good news isn't a message that people are terrible sinners or that God is mad at or estranged from them; the Gospel is the good news that God has reconciled us to Himself!  God isn't our enemy, He has actually received us into favor and brought us into harmony with Himself!  He is calling out to us that He is friends with us and has repaired the damage sin did to our relationship.

By Whom did God do this wonderful thing, restoring us to favor and harmony with Himself?   He did it by and through Christ!  God was present in Christ, reconciling and restoring who to favor with Himself?  The world!!  This was a shock to me.  God hasn't just restored Christians to favor and harmony with Himself.  He has restored the whole world!  Had the world done anything yet according to these verses?  No!  ALL these things are from God, the verse says!  NONE at all from mankind.  So this means that without man's help, without man's turning to God, feeling sorry for sin, repenting, asking for help or forgiveness, coming and grovelling before God, begging to please let us back into His good graces, without all that, God has gone ahead and repaired the damage in the relationship, gone ahead and restored us to a place of His favor, a place in harmony with Him!  But how can that be when the world is full of sinners?  How can that be when our sin is so wrong and deserving of death.  What is the way God, through Jesus, was looking at the world in regards to sin?  He was not counting up or holding mankind's sins against them!  Instead He was cancelling them!  On the cross, God cancelled the sin debt of mankind.  Through Jesus' death, God was not counting men's sins against them.  That means our sins did not keep us from God, for they weren't counted against us but instead cancelled.  In other words, God forgave our sins through Jesus' death on the cross..  

This really shook my world the first time God revealed it to me!  What does it mean to forgive?  In the New Testament, forgiveness means to send away, to let go, to graciously restore one to another, to pardon, to let go free/loose a captive's bonds, to release a debtor and not press your claim against him, to acquit one accused of a crime and set him at liberty.  Thus, when the verse says that God did not count men's sins against them but cancelled them, we see that basically what He did was forgive them.  He did not press His claim against us sinners; instead He cancelled our debt and restored us to Himself in friendship and favor.  

The gospel of grace is crazy and wonderful because it says God actually forgives the world before it repents!  God actually justifies the ungodly.  He receives sinners.  He doesn't count mankind's sins against them.  He truly has reconciled the world to favor and harmony with Himself by the work of Jesus on the cross!

So what do we plead with the world about?  We plead with them to receive this divine favor that is given and BE (not seek to become or try to attain, but just BE what is already true) reconciled to God!  The message of the gospel is that God has already become your friend, so receive that friendship!  God has already reconciled you so be a reconciled person.  Stop acting as if God is against you and our to get you, because He isn't..He is FOR you, you're in His favor.  Favor means to show special regard to, treat with goodwill, show exceptional kindness to,</sup>  treat with generosity far beyond what would be normally expected.  That is the way God feels about us and treats you, His disposition toward you!  God is favorable disposed toward mankind, not against mankind.  God is not our enemy and never was.  We made ourselves God's enemies, and He went and made us back into His friends, without our even doing anything, no questions asked!  That is the wonder of grace!

<sup>But how could this be, you might be asking..God can't just overlook sin.  He can't just forget about the injustices done in the world, the heinous crimes done to the unsuspecting.  How could He just wipe the slate clean for the whole world, without anyone even needing to feel sorry or remorseful, without anyone even promising to change or clean up their act in any way?  What does the last verse say that God did about our sin, for our sake?  For our sake, He made Jesus to BE our sin.  Did Jesus ever sin?  NO.  Did Jesus even have a nature to sin?  NO.  Did Jesus deserve to be punished for sin?  NO.  But out of love, for our sake, He became sin.  What does it mean that He become sin?  He identified with our sin and took on our sin.  He was endued with sin for our sakes.  He took our punishment, He took our mistakes, He took the ruin sin caused, He took it all into Himself.  Why?  So we could become the righteousness of God in Him!  

So the Gospel in a Nutshell is 1) that God loved us and gives us life in place of death and also that 2) God for our sake gives us righteousness in place of sin!   

Just what does it mean that Christ became sin so we could become righteousness in Him?</sup>  Well, the answer is so big and wonderful that we want to really unpack it in depth, so let's take a look at that next time!

Day 14 - The Gospel in a Nutshell, Part 1 - 30 Days of Grace

Let's stop and take a few verses into our thoughts that just sum up the gospel of grace.  We have seen how Grace is God's nature, that it is seen in the Old and New Testament, that it is the love of God even for sinners, that it means God giving good gifts for us for free, that it shows God is a God of love and not wrath..now let's just stop and ask "What is the gospel of grace, then?" 

John 3:16 is probably the most famous and well-known verse in the Bible, and it is like the Gospel in a Nutshell.  Let's see what this verse tells us about God's heart of grace and gift of grace! 

I will give two translations so we can get a fuller look at this verse and its meaning; Let's read what it does say and note what it does not say:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.         John 3:16  NIV

For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten ^]unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.         John 3:16 AMP

Who does this verse start with, that is setting the whole salvation process in motion?  God, not us!  God acts, we don't have to do something to get Him to act.  God initiates salvation, not man.  Salvation starts in His heart and mind, not ours.

How does God feel in His heart and what moves Him to act?  He loves, He so greatly loves and dearly prizes!  This is a great love that moves God to do something big!  He loves, He doesn't hate!  He dearly prizes, He doesn't see as worthless nothings..

Who does He feel so strongly about, have this great love and esteem for?  The world!  Who does the world include?  Everyone, including the worst sinners ever!  He doesn't just love the good people, doesn't just love the worthy, doesn't just love those seeking Him, doesn't just love those who are repentant or turning to Him or committed to Him.  He loves the world!  He loves people who are running from Him, who hate Him, who rebel against Him, who don't want to have anything to do with Him!  These are the kind of people He actually loves and prizes!  To love is to value and esteem highly.  To prize is to see as special and valuable, to want to have because of the great worth of the object.  Amazingly, that is how God feels about a world that wants nothing to do with Him, so actually a godless world is loved by an amazing God of grace!

What did this great love for the world move God to do?  He gave!  He didn't withhold!  He didn't destroy or punish or rant and rave or turn His back on this world of wicked people.  No, He gave!  He gave a gift to those wicked ones.  Did the world deserve a gift, had the world done anything to merit a gift? NO!  The world deserved punishment, but God gave a gift instead!  That is grace!

What wonderful gift did God give this world?  His Son!  He gave of His own family, of His own heart, the Son of His bosom.  What kind of Son?  His one and only, only-begotten Son! The only Son He had, He willingly gave up for and gave to us!  God didn't begrudgingly say oh, if you do a lot of good things, maybe I'll force myself to look upon you and give you a little reward..no! He said I give you the best I have, without you having to be anything or do anything, I give you My one and only Son!

What is asked of us?  Believe, simply believe!  Not do good works, improve, look better, clean yourself up, be committed, promise to do better, sacrifice all, say you'll obey, or even turn away from all your sin and want to do better..no it says simply, to believe!

What will happen if we just believe? We will not perish! We will not be destroyed, ruined, or separated from God.  He rescues us from the destruction of sin.  It is not that He is saying, oh, you accepted my Son, oh well, I guess I have to let you in heaven.  No, He is wanting us in, welcoming us in! It is not that we barely get to go to heaven but still are basically ruled by sin, no, we are delivered completely from the kingdom of death into the kingdom of life, and we won't perish!  We are not barely saved and could slip into lostness, no, we will not perish, we will never be lost, we are safe and secure!

Instead of perishing, what do we have?  We have eternal life! That is God's life, the Spirit in us, forever, a relationship with God, union with God, knowing God, a life that is abundant and everlasting! It's not that He is saying, okay, you believed, you are in the family but just stand over there in a corner because I barely tolerate you..no, He is lavishing everything upon us in the Son!  Life, real life!

This is the Gospel in a Nutshell!  God loves us sinners and gave His Son so that by simple believing, all bad things are taken from us and so can't ever harm us, and God's life and all good things coming with that life, come to us, and it lasts forever!

Day 13 - God of Love, Not God of Wrath - 30 Days of Grace

We have been talking about God being a good giver and giving things for free, by grace.  I think sometimes we have trouble seeing God as a loving giver who longs to bless us because we may have an image of God in our mind as an angry or wrathful God, angry at us because of our sin.  I have felt this myself many times, especially after I have failed in some way.  I have had this picture in my mind of God withdrawing from me with a dark look or disappointment or even irritation or anger on His face.  I have felt that there was something like a dark cloud between us, keeping me from seeing His face, and I felt that must be my sin.  It made it very hard to feel comfortable praying or feeling accepted by Him.  Instead I felt guilty, condemned, ashamed and like running from God!

But that isn't the true image of God!  That faulty image is a lie and delusion of Satan! The true image of God is of a smiling Daddy, opening His arms and coming toward us with a present for us, so happy to be with us, so enraptured by our smile, ready to pick us up, swing us around in His arms, and hold us close to His cheek in a big hug!  That is the true picture of God, and it shows God as a God of grace and love who freely gives us gifts and wants to bless us!

But how can that be, you may ask, when the Bible talks about God's wrath?

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness.       Rom. 1:18

What is the wrath of God revealed against?  Against all godlessness and wickedness of people.  What kind of people are described here?  People who do wickedly and act ungodly.  Is the wrath against the people or the wickedness of the people?  It is against the wickedness, not the people!  This is such an important distinction!  God in His love, hates the sin and loves the sinner.  He has wrath against the sin and grace toward the sinner. God loves His created ones, and that is why He so hates the wickedness that people do, because it hurts the loved ones He made!  Think of a parent who loves their child dearly.  The child gets into some bad associations and ends up stealing something, gets caught, and ends up in jail with his so-called friends nowhere to be seen.  The parent loves his child, and that makes him angry at what the wrongdoing has done to his child.  His child was made for so much better than sitting in a jail cell!  The parent wants to do anything to get his child free and living the kind of good and happy life that the parent always envisioned for his child!  That is the same as how God feels about us!

God is a God of grace and love, not a God of wrath.  God is never called a 'God of wrath' in the Bible, but He IS called the "God of love" - in fact, the Bible says, "God IS love" but never says "God is wrath!"  God is seen as a consuming fire and full of holy passion, but that wrath or holy passion is not against the people He created, it is best seen as against the sin and evil that has infected them and is eating away at their lives, destroying them from within like a disease or poison!  God's wrath is against sin and all the works of the devil in our lives, because of how sin/the devil harms us and hold us captive, and Jesus came to deliver the wrath of God upon sin and destroy the works of the devil, thus setting us free from bondage to fear and death!  So we see God's anger as directed not toward people themselves, but toward the sin that so easily entangles them. God's wrath then is part of His love for us, that He doesn't want anything to destroy us or keep us from relationship with Him!  So Christ literally burns that sin up/does away with it by absorbing it into His body on the cross and taking it down to death with Him so it is GONE and cannot hurt or destroy us anymore!

Because Christ took away our sin, we never have to worry about anything coming between us and God again!  The 'wall' of sin that was like a barrier in our minds between us and God is GONE!  Christ took it away forever!  From God's side, there never was any distance or barrier between us.  He was always ready to welcome us, to accept us, to interact with us.  But our sins created a barrier between us and God in our minds, and we felt shame and guilt over our wrongs.  Jesus removed the sins, and thus our consciousness of sins is gone and the 'barrier' is seen to be false!  God is right here with us, as He has always been.  We were always running and hiding from God, afraid of His displeasure and anger, afraid He had harsh scowl of disapproval on His face; now we find out that His face has always been full of love and grace for us, that it was He who wanted to rescue us from the confusion and lies Satan had trapped us in, the sin that had entangled us and was destroying our lives.  He had always wanted us in His arms, had always wanted to hold us close so we wouldn't be hurt by sin, even when we wouldn't come to Him, even when we rebelled. 

Now Christ has set us free from sin's captivity, taking away the sin from us, so there is no barrier that we can 'see' in our minds anymore!  Our guilt is taken away, our shame that we felt is no longer there!  We have nothing to be ashamed of!  There is nothing between us and God that could come to mind now, for all the sin that made us ashamed and afraid to aprroach Him is gone!  God has always been our Friend, and He has brought us back face-to-face with Him in harmonious relationship.  Christ has given us the gift of righteousness, meaning 'a right relationship with God', perfect, unhindered, 24/7 fellowship and union with God, a state of being at peace and harmony with God, of real and transparent friendship with Him!  There will never be a wall separating us from Him, there will never be any barriers in our relationship. We have been given the very relationship that JESUS has with God the Father, for we have been put IN Christ and given His own righteousness (right relationship with God)!!

So whenever we may feel there is a wall between us and God, fear there is a shadow of disappointment over His face, or worry that He's withdrawn from us or that we're distant from Him, we can know that those feelings are all LIES and ILLUSION!  For Jesus took away our sin and brought us into perfect relationship with God where nothing can ever come between us or mar that fellowship!  No sin could make us go out of fellowship or lose our connection with God, because our relationship is based on Christ and His perfection, not our own works.  That relationship is set sure and firm because it is the righteousness/right relationship of Christ Himself with God that is given to us!  The only thing that ever marred our relationship with God in the past was sin, and Jesus has taken away our sin, God says He will remember our sins no more, so thus there is nothing that can ever separate us from God or His love!  God Himself took away our sins, God Himself gave us a right and perfect relationship, God Himself made us right with Himself with His own righteousness, God Himself gave us His favor, God Himself brought us to peaceful relationship with Himself, God Himself is satisfied with this perfect union fellowship He placed us into!  Thus, it's a perfect union that nothing can dissolve or disrupt!  Your relationship with God is perfect and unalterable!  THAT is what the passion of God's love has done!!  It has eradicated everything that could keep you from feeling able to be with God,  it has given you the right to stand in God's presence without any fear or shame, and it has placed you forever in the place of perfect and unhindered fellowship with God.  His passion against sin has made sure that NOTHING can separate you from His presence or love!

Day 12 - God the Good Giver - 30 Days of Grace

Sometimes it's hard to fathom or believe the wonderful things God does for us and the wonderful gifts He gives us.  He is so good and kind, it seems to good to be true tat we are getting off free from the punishment of our sins and getting to have a place at His family table totally for free, without our doing a thing, without cleaning ourselves up in the least!  It is hard to fathom such love!  One reason I think this is hard for us is that what we see so often in this world is conditional love, or love with strings attached.  This world is set up on a performance-based acceptance system, where you earn your way and get rewarded or punished according to how you act.

There's very little in this world that it truly for free.  Even Christmas presents!  For doesn't the song say that Old Saint Nick sees you when you are sleeping or awake and knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake?  For if you aren't good, you may not get the 'present'!  It is just the way this fallen world works.

But it is not the way God works!  God really is a good gift giver, and the gifts He gives have no strings attached.  He doesn't require us to do anything to get these gifts of His, like be good or do good works or try hard to please Him or beg and plead or say we're sorry for our wrong and promise to be better.  And He doesn't require us to do anything after we get them either, like improve or pray more or sacrifice all our plans and desires or commit ourselves to His cause or do good things or show that we're really thankful.  His gifts really are free! 

And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.  1 John 5:11-12

In these verses, we see God is a giving God.  What has He given us?  He has given us eternal life!  Where is this life to be found?  It is in His Son!  So if I have received the Son, what do I automatically have? I have life!  God has given us the most amazing gift of all - His very own Son to live inside us.  This is His very own life, His very own Spirit coming to dwell in us!  Since God's life is eternal life, receiving the Son is receiving eternal life!  And eternal life is more than just having a 'thing' that will make you live forever.  John defined eternal life as knowing God!  When we receive the Son, the Spirit of the Son comes in and through the Spirit, God the Father and God the Son make there home in us and we all have fellowship and know one another!  Having real intimate relationship with God is real life, abundant life, eternal life!  And this is all ours how?  As a gift that we simply receive by faith (Receiving by faith - what does that mean? That means when we believe/trust in Him, take Him at His word that He has given us life in His Son, we are receiving that Son, that life into ourselves.  Faith is simple, it is just seeing what is already true, taking God at His word that it is so.  Seeing it is so makes it come alive in our experience, makes us come alive to God's reality!)

So God has given us this amazing gift of eternal life by giving us His Son.  With His Son comes all that He is, not just eternal life, but joy, holiness, hope, peace, strength, love, faith, authority, freedom, kindness, wholeness, security, righteousness, purity, etc.

According to the verses above, when is God going to give this gift - after we do something or beg or get cleaned up/worthy?  None of those things are needed, because the verse says God "has given" us eternal life - He has already given the gift!  He's not holding on to it, waiting till we're good enough or ask hard enough for us to finally pry open His hands and 'get' Him to give the gift!  I read the title of a book recently - it was something like this:  "How to Get God to Answer Your Prayers".  This frustrated me, because it made it seem God is sitting in heaven refusing to do anything nice for us, withholding good things from us, and we have to somehow figure out a way to get on His good side and change His mind and convince Him to be nice and give us things.  It makes it sound like it is all up to us to 'do' something to get a blessing.  But that is not how God is at all!  God LOVES to give, He LOVES to bless!  He looks for ways to bless us and give to us!  He only wishes we would just receive all He has given us already.  Yes, already!  This verse says God already has given!  God already loves us, has already released the good things for us, has already opened heaven and poured out the blessings!  We don't need to change His mind, we need to change our mind and see that He is loving, good, and not withholding any good thing from us!  He is always pouring out the love and good gifts on us.  He proved He is a giving God by giving His very best, His own Son!

So are there any requirements to meet to deserve this gift, according to the verses above?  No!  Is this gift only for a certain group of people, according to these verses?  No, it's for 'whoever', which means anyone and everyone!  Are there any requirements to do anything after getting this gift, any stipulations attached once you receive it?  No!  We have this gift totally by grace.  It is truly given as a gift, for free, not needing to be earned or merited in any way.  It is free for all, for anyone who desires to receive the gift!

Grace means everything is a gift in this Christian life, given just because God loves us, because He is a good giver, and given freely, with no stipulations or requirements to get or to keep the gift!

Day 11 - Loved in the Midst of Our Sinning - 30 Days of Grace

The wonderful truth of grace that God loves us even when we sin is just so big, so important, so crucial to having rest in your heart about how God feels about you, that I just want to talk about it another day!

When I first got overwhelmed with the grace of God, I was a burned out Christian.  I had tried and tried to live a good and successful Christian life, and the more I tried, the more I saw my failures.  I felt like a failure as a Christian, felt it was hopeless that I could ever succeed in being holy, and I just quit.  I truly burned out and gave up on trying to be a good Christian.  Then I was introduced to the idea of God's grace, something I had never really grasped before!  And my life was changed!  One book I read back then when God first taught me about grace was the wonderful book  Classic Christianity, In it, author Bob George say that "Grace is the unconditional love of God manifested to us in the midst of our sinfulness."  This really stuck with me because I felt so sinful and like I was always failing in what I was 'supposed' to do as a Christian, and I really wondered how God could ever love or accept me when I failed so much.  And then I found out that God really does love me, even when I'm sinning!  I found out about grace!

Grace is God's love that is undeserved. That means it comes to us even when we don't deserve it, that is, when we sin, fail, disobey, doubt, rant and rave, rebel, struggle, crash and burn!!  THAT is when grace comes into its own!  Grace is love for the unlovely, acceptance for the unacceptable, friendship with the unfriendly!  I think this is my favorite thing about grace and what makes grace so wonderful and important in our lives  - grace comes to us when we're hopeless failures, and when we're hopeless failures is just when we need grace the most!

It's when we fail that we feel so weak, start to have negative thoughts about ourselves and get down on ourselves for being such dirty, rotten failures.  Satan often comes and attacks at those moments of failure with thoughts of guilt, condemnation, self-loathing, shame and worthlessness.  He tries to tell us there is no way God could love us, that we are far from God, that God is disgusted and disappointed with us, that God is angry and wanting us to 'shape up or ship out', and on and on.

And right then, in that place of feeling like such a failure and feeling so far from God, so displeasing in His sight, so unacceptable and out of fellowship and 'not right' with Him, right at that moment is when we so desperately need the message of grace and often is when God reveals it!  It's like a little voice saying, "I love you right now, as you are, where you are.  I love you, I love you, I love you."  And it is unbelievable!  It brings such relief to know He loves us and accepts us and speaks to us, is close to us, even in the midst of our sinfulness!

1 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. ² He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.                            1 John 2:1-2

Let's look at these verses to see God's attitude toward us when we sin.  First, what are we called here?  We are called dear children!  That's a term of love and affection!  Next, what does the verse say we have if we sin?  We have an advocate with the Father.  What is an advocate?  

Here is a definition for an advocate from the King James Version Dictionary:

One who defends, vindicates, or espouses a cause, by argument; one who is friendly to; as, an advocate for peace, or for the oppressed.  In scripture, Christ is called an advocate for his people: "We have an advocate with the father."    1John, 2.

Here we see that Christ is our defender who comes to our aid when we need help.  He espouses or takes up our cause for us.  He is our friend who comes to help us when we fail and need support and encouragement.  He is an advocate defending our position of peace when we are oppressed.  Christ is an advocate with whom?  With the Father.  Notice it doesn't say against the Father!  The Father is not against us!  The Father is for us!  Notice that in the next verse it says that Christ is what for our sins?  He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, the propitiation - which just means satisfaction.  In other words, God is satisfied with the sacrifice of the Son for your sins!  He isn't mad, at odds with you, against you or judging you!  He is satisfied with the work Jesus did to take away your sins, and He was the One who sent Jesus in the first place, because He loved you and was on your side and wanted to get rid of your sins and the ruin they caused in your life!  So notice that, that the Father and Jesus are on the same side in this verse!

Jesus is an Advocate WITH the Father for us!  Jesus isn't defending us against the FATHER'S accusations!  The Father isn't the accuser!  Who is the accuser of the brethren?  The devil!  We see that as an Advocate, Jesus stands up for the peace of the oppressed.  The Father isn't an oppressor!  Who is the oppressor?  Once again, it is our enemy, the devil!  So in these verses, Jesus joins the Father in standing up for us against the accusations and oppressions that Satan tries to put on us, thoughts of guilt and condemnation and shame, feelings that the Father is angry or distant, feeling we are not accepted or loved, feelings we deserve punishment and God is going to 'get us.'  All these are accusations the devil throws at us, and Jesus and the Father are on our side as our Friends to defend us, stand up for us, help and comfort us, and support the fact that 'we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ!"

After we sin, when the enemy may be attacking us with feelings of failure and shame and estrangement from God, Jesus and the Father are right there with you saying, "This beloved child is in total peace with Me because of the blood shed by the Son!  There is nothing wrong in our relationship!  We love and accept this one and nothing is between us, because the Son's death cleared away all this one's sin and guilt and punishment!"

Right when you sin, hear the message of grace - there is no condemnation on you, God loves and accepts you, and the work of the Son is effective on your behalf and has taken away your sin, God is totally satisfied with Jesus' work, and there is complete peace between you and God!  You are loved, you  are supported, you have a friend on your side right when you sin!  Every time you sin!  No matter how often, and no matter how many times you do the same sin over and over, it doesn't matter, He is still your Advocate (Supporter, Helper, Friend, Comforter) with the Father - so that means God loves you, is your Friend and is accepting toward you, helping and supporting you even when you fail.  When you fail, God isn't standing by to yell at you!  He is standing by (another meaning of the word Advocate) to comfort and help and heal!  "With grace, failure doesn't make any difference."  (David Seamands)  Our failures don't affect His love for us!

Day 10 - Grace for Sinners - 30 Days of Grace

 We want to dig more deeply into the riches of grace and see all Christ has done for us, but first, it's a good idea to deal with some feelings that may surface from time to time as we study grace:  "This all seems too good to be true!  We get all these wonderful things for free, without any hard works?  And how come I don't 'feel' some of these things in my life?"

For example, just looking at Day 9 and the passage from 2 Peter:  when we think of all Christ has done for us by grace, how He brought us to faith, how He has delivered us out of the decay and ruin in the world of sin and has given us a relationship with Himself, even giving us the divine nature inside us to want to love and trust Him, all as a gift without any mention of our need to clean up our behavior or really do any works...it can seem too good to be true, can't it?  And sometimes it can make us shake our heads wondering how this good news can be true when we still see sin and evil doings in our lives, when we don't always feel loving or trusting, when sometimes we feel distant from God rather than in a close relationship of true knowing, and when we sometimes feel we are lacking so much when it comes to godly living. 

I have had those feelings and thoughts come to me before.  How can grace be true when I have this sin in my life, feel sinful thoughts and urgings, and really haven't done anything to deserve it?  Let's look through a passage that can help us with these questions:

⁶ You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.   Rom. 5:6-8

According to this passage, at just the right time, Christ died for us.  When was the right time?  While we were powerless!  When we were at a low point, really the lowest we could be, THAT was God's right time to send Christ to die for us!  Powerless means helpless, unable to do anything to help oneself.  So why would that time, when we were without any power or strength to help ourselves, be the right time for Christ to die?  Because then the work He did could be shown to be completely by His love and grace, all of His work and not earned or produced in any way by us.  But the verse describes us even more fully.  Who did Christ die for?  The ungodly!  Ungodly means the total opposite of God!  That means we were the total opposite of Love, for God is Love.  We were the total opposite of Holy, for God is Holy!  We were the opposite of Good, for God is Good.  So God died for people who were not like Him in any way at all!  We were totally without God, God was foreign to us. Not only were we helpless to save ourselves, but we were ungodly and didn't want to be saved!  We were bad, rebellious, having resistant thoughts and a disobedient attitude toward God!  We were not running toward God trying to find Him and just helpless to do so, NO, we were running away from God, hiding from Him, not wanting a relationship with Him! 

According to the passage, what kind of person would someone dare to die for?  A good person.  And then, only rarely would someone actually die for that good person.  Why is that?  Because giving up your life is the ultimate sacrifice of love you can make for a person, and it's rare to find that kind of love, that kind of person willing to die, and that kind of person who deserves such a sacrifice to be made for him/her.  

And yet, what did God demonstrate to us, the helpless and ungodly?  He demonstrated His love!  His love is bigger, greater, more self-sacrificing, more amazing and abundant than any other love.  It's in a class by itself:  God's Love!   It's perfect hesed love that never fails and never ends, going on and on and being faithful to love no matter what the circumstance, obstacle or cost!  How did God demonstrate this love to us?  He demonstrated it in that while we were STILL SINNERS, Christ died for us!  (He died not just for helpless and ungodly people, He died for sinners - what is a sinner?  A sinner is a person who sins by nature.  We were people infected with a sin nature, following Satan rather than God, choosing to disobey God.) 

It was a great demonstration of love for Jesus to die for us while we were still sinners!  Had we done one thing good for God yet?  NO!  Had we even turned to Him and asked for help yet?  NO!  Had we even thought about God yet?  NO!  Had we even cared at all about God?  NO!  THAT'S the kind of people we were before knowing Christ, and THAT'S the you Christ died for!  Christ died for bad people!  He died for people who were rebels and God-resisters, flat-out troublemakers with nothing good to say about themselves.  He died for people who didn't deserve to have someone die for them.  He died for people who didn't qualify to have someone die for them.  He died for people who didn't merit or deserve to be saved!  For Him to do this act of love to save us BEFORE we had cleaned ourselves up or even turned to Him in repentance or faith, was and is and act of PURE GRACE.  That is what grace is - it is love that acts to save and bless the undeserving!

Now if Christ would do that, what does it tell us? It tells us God's love is unconditional!  No matter what sin we commit today or tomorrow, no matter how far we fall, no matter how much we run from God, forget God, or resist God, no matter what ditch we fall into from our own wrongdoing, no matter what, God is there loving us STILL!  None of that fazes God!  He loved us at our worst.  He helped us at our worst.  That is real unconditional love.  Jesus' death for us on the cross truly shows the depth of His love, that He is going to love us always, for He already loved us - and even sacrificed His own life for us! - at our worst.  Here is someone who knows you at your worst and still takes you in, still loves you, still acts on your behalf to lift you up!  Not only does He love us in our mess, but also He doesn't condemn us in our mess but instead lifts us out of it!  THAT is the love we have been looking for all our lives, and it is found in God!

Jesus' death on the cross for us tells us something else, too.  It tells us that this helping us out of our mess/saving comes solely by grace.  Christ died for us before we could do one good thing to earn points with God.  Christ died for us before we could clean ourselves up. Christ died for us before we could even turn to Him or have faith, say we're sorry, vow to change, surrender, promise to do better, make Him Lord of our lives, feel bad about our sin, or even ask for help. In fact, Christ died for us before we were even born!  So we know that we contributed nothing to His work on the cross.  We did nothing to make Him decide to go there and die.  There wasn't anything good in us that caused Him to die for us.  What does this tell me?  I don't have to be good to be loved!  I don't have to do anything to get God to love or help me!  He is already on my side to save me!  None of my works are required.  I don't have to merit His help.  His love and help are free.  They are gifts of grace.  God is for me, without me having to be or do anything.  He is for me!  He has aleady moved to help me!  He sent Jesus to die before I even existed! THAT is grace!

So how does this study help us with our feelings of unworthiness to have such wonderful gifts?  It reminds us that we don't have to be worthy to be loved and blessed by God!  God loves and blesses us because He IS love.  We don't have to be lovable to be loved.  That is a wonderful truth in the good news of grace!  So next time we have those feelings that this is all too good to be true, that we don't deserve it, that we don't feel qualified to receive all this goodness and salvation from God, we can remember we don't have to qualify for grace!  God's salvation is by grace, which means it is for the UN-qualified and UN-deserving!  So if you are unqualified, I guess you actually "qualify" for His grace!  His favor is UN-merited, so those who are without merit are the ones who get it, which just means ALL of us get it!  

What do we have to be to have Christ die for us? Helpless...ungodly...sinners!  Jesus didn't die for perfect people.  He didn't come and die for righteous people.  He died for dirty, rotten, messed up, rebellious sinful people.  That's you, that's me.  Thus, we 'qualify' for His salvation, just by being 'unqualified.'  

This reminds me of a story told by Brennan Manning about something that happened in a church once.  The parishioners were kneeling to receive communion, and as the church leader came with the cup to a certain young girl, he noticed she was crying. She felt she had done so many things wrong, and felt ashamed.  The man leaned down and whispered to her as he handed her the cup, "Take it, lassie, it's for sinners."  If you've felt you were sinful, a sinner, condemned, ashamed, and dirty, well, you are the one He died for.  He died for sinners.  So receive His grace, His love, His salvation.  You see, it's for sinners, so if you're a sinner, then it's just for you, isn't it..  It's for you, it's for me!  What wonderful grace!

By the way, if the very God of the universe would take on flesh and actually give up His life for you, you must not be so worthless or useless after all.  You must be pretty valuable.  You must be pretty special.  You must be truly precious to Him!  To love means to value and esteem highly, as precious.  God showed His love for you when Christ died for you.  That means He showed what you are worth to Him.  You are worth what He was willing to give up for you:  you are worth His Son!  I guess you are pretty precious and esteemed in God's eyes!!

Day 9 - Grace Has Given Us All We Need - 30 Days of Grace

We have looked at a general definition of grace as seen in the Old Testament and then in the New Testament.  So what is the work of grace in our lives, and what has God done for us by grace? Let's look at some verses that sum up what God's grace has done for us:

1 ...To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:

²Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

³ His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. ⁴ Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

2 Peter 1:1b-4 

What is God acting by in these verses?  He is acting by or through His righteousness and the righteousness of Christ!  The righteousness of God is the power and force behind all His acts of grace in our lives.  His love moves His heart to act in grace (undeserved favor), and it is by His righteousness that His grace works in our lives - not through OUR righteousness!  We don't have to be righteous in order to be loved or graced (favored, accepted, empowered) by God!  It is HIS righteousness that matters, and by His perfect goodness He moves in our lives and helps, saves and blesses us!  So how does He bless us?  Let's see...

How do these verses describe our faith?  Our faith is precious!  We have received or been brought into a state of faith that is of equal standing with all other believers in Christ.  That is the first work of grace in our hearts!  God moves in our hearts and stirs us and implants a seed of faith in our heart so that we can believe the gospel.  We don't even have to muster up faith on our own - it is a gift from God, it is the faith of Christ Himself given to us!

Next we see God gives us grace and peace. How much grace and peace?  A multiplication of grace and peace, in abundance! God showers on the grace and peace and makes it ours!  He pours out the grace - His freely given favor, acceptance, and acts of blessing; and He pours out the peace - the wholeness, tranquility, rest, and perfect harmonious relationship of oneness with Himself!  Wow!  

How does He pour out these things on us, how does He minister this grace and peace to us?  Through us coming to know Him and His Son Jesus!  (Notice it doesn't come by our working hard, earning it, or striving to be good enough to get it - it just comes by simply knowing Jesus!)  So God by grace gives us the gift of faith so we can believe and come to know Jesus, and He pours out His grace and peace as we have this knowledge of Christ!  We actually come to know Christ when we become a Christian.  We are brought into a wonderful fellowship and relationship with Jesus!

What has God, in His divine power, given us as a gift by grace?  He has given us everything we need for life and godliness!  How much has He given us?  Everything!  Everything we need for life, and everything we need for godliness!   So do we need any more or anything else than what He's given us already?  NO!  Are we lacking or deficient in any way?  NO!  Do we need to strive to get more, have more, etc. to really be successful in life and Christian living?  NO!  Do we have less than others or need to compare ourselves to others in any way to see if we are short on some virtue or gift?  NO!  Is there anything more we need to become, do, attain to, strive for, or reach?  NO!  If we already have everything we need in Christ, we don't need to do more, be more, attain more, or have more.  We have all we need and we are all we were meant to be, just by knowing and having HIM!

This is such a wonderful and big way of saying what God's grace does for us!  He gives us faith, brings us to know Christ, and then He pours out the grace and peace in our hearts and gives us EVERYTHING we need for life and godliness!  Wow!  It's a full package deal!  We aren't trying to get anything from God, then, for HE has ALREADY given us all we need for life and for godliness!

Through what means does He give us this grace gift of everything we need?  It is through the knowledge of Christ!  We have come into a personal relationship with Christ and through HIM, we have received it all!  Thus we see that where are all these things, everything we need?  They are all in Christ Himself!  Christ Himself has, holds, and IS all these things!  HE is everything we need for life and godliness!  So the big grace gift of God, the everything we need for life and godliness, is really what?  It is really Christ Himself!  HE is all we need and everything we need.  All that's needed for life and godliness is wrapped up in a Person, and we have come to know that Person!  We have been brought into constant, unbroken fellowship with that Person.  We have come to know that Person in a real, personal, deep way by real experience!

Is this all our doing and by our work?  How does this knowledge come about?  It comes through Him who called us - it comes through God's work of calling us to Christ!  It doesn't come by our straining and striving to do enough good things to get on God's good side so that He will let us come into Christ's presence.  No, it comes through God's calling! Through His choosing us and calling us to come to Him!  Through His drawaing and wooing and making the way!  He wants us to know Him and brings us to Himself, shows us Himself, introduces us to His Son so we can know Him.  He isn't hiding Himself but revealing Himself to us!  It isn't us who had to call and search for God, but He who called us and came and searched for us and brought us to Himself!

Why did He call us?  It was by His glory and goodness!  In other words, it is the essence of who He is (His glory) and His nature (good) that brought Him to call us and bring us to know His Son!  It was by grace!  It was a free gift!  And not only that but some translations say He called us by and TO His glory and goodness, meaning that is not just why He acted in grace but also what He brings us to in grace - He brought us out to know and participate in His glory and goodness, to know and experience His glory presence and His wonderful goodness to us!  He lavishes His Presence and His good gifts on us!  What a wonderful God and what wonderful grace!

Through His glory and goodness, what has God graciously given us?  He has given us His precious and great promises!  He has given us His word telling us His will, and we know He'll keep His word, for He is always true to it.  So we know His promises are SURE, and CERTAIN, and He is so faithful that we can call them already DONE!  The Bible says that all the promises of God are Yes and Amen ( in other words they all come true and come to pass ) in Jesus, so in coming to know Jesus, ALL the promises of God have come true for us already!  We are standing on fulfillment ground!  They have all been made ours!  

What have these promises done for us?  They have made us partakers of the divine nature!  Wow!  Talk about a grace gift!  We, through becoming a born again believer, now have a divine nature rather than a sin nature!  We will talk more about this later, but for now, it means that we have been made righteous and good!  We have God's nature inside and we share His own nature!

How is this possible since we had been such sinners?  We have escaped the corruption in the world through evil desires!  In coming to know Jesus, God has delivered us from the corruption, decay and death in the world that came through evil desires of the sin nature!  He has rescued us from that existence, that nature, and the effects of that nature (sin and curse and death).  Christ's death has taken away our sin and cleansed us, so that we could now have a new life and nature, starting afresh with no sin nature or sin problem or sin punishment/effects. His resurrection has brought us to new life in Him!  We have been lifted into the new creation life of Christ and born again with His nature!  

This is just an overall summary of what God's grace has done for us in Christ.  God, by His grace, has truly given us all we need!  He has brought us to faith in Christ and brought us into relationship with Christ.  He has brought us into the fullness of everything Christ has and is.  He has brought us into the life and nature of Christ!  We have truly been graced and favored, and this is all a wonderful gift of God that we didn't have to earn or deserve or work for in any way.  It was abundantly given to us through the work of Christ, His work of grace.  

Let's dig in more into this work of grace that Christ has done for us and all He's given us!  Next time, let's start that grace excavation and really go deep and uncover the riches of His grace in His gift to us through Christ - let's dig into the gospel of grace and His finished work for us, which has given us a whole new identity  and riches in Christ!

Day 8 - Grace in the New Testament - 30 Days of Grace

We've looked at the idea of grace in the Old Testament and have seen how it is similar to the hesed love of God, the faithful and firm love of God that moves Him to act to bless and care for us out of His own goodness, not out of whether we stay faithful or obedient or not.  It is a love that acts to help us even when we fail, a love that goes beyond failure to bless and restore us to joy.

So what about the New Testament idea of grace?  The word grace is used many times in the New Testament.  Let's see how it is defined for us in Ephesians 2:.

1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, ² in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. ³ All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh^[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. ⁴ But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. ⁶ And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷ in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰ For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

How do these verses describe us on our own, without God?  Well, it's not too pretty, is it?  We were dead in our sins.  And what/who were we ruled by?  We followed the ways of the world, the ruler (the devil) who works in the disobedient, and followed the desires and thoughts of the flesh.  What did we deserve by nature?  We deserved wrath.  

But God did something good for us, though we were in such a state!  What moved Him to do this good thing?  It was His great love for us that caused Him to help us, for He is described as rich in mercy!  Mercy is a similar word to grace, just focusing on a different aspect of God's love.  Mercy is the love of God that moves Him to withhold the punishment we deserve, while grace is the love of God that moves Him to give us the blessing we don't deserve!  Mercy is God being moved to pity us who have fallen into the ditch of life and are so alone in the cold, and grace is God being moved to give us a warm bath, a hot meal, and a permanent place of honor at His table!  Mercy is God loving us in our need and trouble and mess caused by sin; grace is God loving and lifting us out of our mess into His glory!  

But back to our text.  We see that God's love and mercy motivated Him to help us when we were dead in sin and controlled by the world, flesh, and devil. What did He do for us?  He made us alive with Christ, raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ!  Wow, that's upward mobility!  What was the purpose of Him giving us life along with Christ and raising us up to sit with Him along with Christ in heaven?  It was so that in the coming ages He might shower the riches of His grace on us and show off His grace by being kind to us.  In other words, He saved us to be kind to us forever!  What are we called at the end of this passage?  We are called God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus.  Why were we re-created as His masterpiece in Christ?  To do the good works God planned for us.

Now let's look at how this took place.  We were saved by what?  By grace!  That is the grace of God, not our graciousness.  The only thing in this passage that could refer to us or our response is what?  The words 'through faith' refer to our response, and even this is said to be not of ourselves, but the gift of God.  So salvation is by grace, to be simply received by faith, and God makes it so easy He not only does all the work of salvation, but He also gives us the faith necessary to believe and experience that salvation!  Salvation is seen to be being made a new creation in Christ, seated in authority beside God, to be showered with God's kindness as we have an eternal love relationship with Him, which overflows into good (loving, kind, generous) works of God flowing through us!  Wow!  That is what He has done for us by grace!

So what does this passage tell me about the grace of God?  It tells me that grace is 'not of works' so that 'noone can boast'.  Grace means God did something for us when we could do nothing for Him to earn or deserve it - He raised us up when we were dead in sins, following after evil.  We deserved wrath, He gave us deliverance and new life in Christ.  We were ruined, He made us new.  We see that we didn't contribute anything to make this happen.  We didn't have to somehow 'get' God to love us, He already did! We didn't have to earn or deserve His kind act of salvation, He just acted out of the goodness of His heart, out of grace!  So how is grace defined in the New Testament, according to this passage?  It is the love and kindness of God that moved Him to save us, without our having to earn, deserve, or merit this love and saving in any way.  It is the favor of God that made Him act in our favor/do us a favor!  Wow, what a wonderful thing is grace!

Day 7 - Grace as Love That Goes Beyond Failure - 30 Days of Grace

We have seen how the concept of grace is closely linked to the word 'hesed', or faithful love, in the Old Testament.  This love was considered to be a strong, committed love and was used in the covenants God made in the Old Testament.  As a covenant love, it was a love that God bound Himself to have for the other party, a love that committed Him to come to their aid, give all that He promised, and keep all the terms of the covenant.  The Law covenant is one many are familiar with in the Old Testament, which includes many laws like the Ten Commandments that the Israelites were to keep as their part in the covenant. God's part was to bless them and have them as His special treasure that He valued (loved) with hesed faithful love.

^{Yet what would happen if Israel broke their part of the Law Covenant?  What if they failed to keep the Law?  Let's read a passage from Hosea 11 where God speaks to Israel about exactly what happened after He brought them from Egypt and made the Law Covenant with them:}

11 “When Israel was a child, I loved him,
    and I called my son out of Egypt.
² But the more I called to him,
    the farther he moved from me,
offering sacrifices to the images of Baal
    and burning incense to idols.
³ I myself taught Israel how to walk,
    leading him along by the hand.
But he doesn’t know or even care
    that it was I who took care of him.
⁴ I led Israel along
    with my ropes of kindness and love.
I lifted the yoke from his neck,
    and I myself stooped to feed him.

⁵ “But since my people refuse to return to me,
    they will return to Egypt
    and will be forced to serve Assyria.
⁶ War will swirl through their cities;
    their enemies will crash through their gates.
They will destroy them,
    trapping them in their own evil plans.
⁷ For my people are determined to desert me.
They call me the Most High,
    but they don’t truly honor me.

⁸ “Oh, how can I give you up, Israel?
    How can I let you go?
How can I destroy you like Admah
    or demolish you like Zeboiim?
My heart is torn within me,
    and my compassion overflows.
⁹ No, I will not unleash my fierce anger.
    I will not completely destroy Israel,
for I am God and not a mere mortal.
    I am the Holy One living among you,
    and I will not come to destroy.
¹⁰ For someday the people will follow me.
    I, the Lord, will roar like a lion.
And when I roar,
    my people will return trembling from the west.
¹¹ Like a flock of birds, they will come from Egypt.
    Trembling like doves, they will return from Assyria.
And I will bring them home again,”
    says the Lord.

<sup>How is God described in taking the Israelites out of Egypt?  He is described as a Daddy helping a toddler to walk, leading him and caring for him!  What was Israel's action as God treated them so well?  They never seemed to acknowledge God, turned away from Him.  What came upon them?  They went into captivity under their enemy (this is exactly what the Law stipulated if they broke their part of the covenant.)  But how did God react?  Even though He had no obligation to do anything for Israel, even though they broke His covenant and didn't care about Him, He just couldn't turn His back on them!  How did God describe His feelings?  He said His heart is torn within Him and His compassion overflows for these who rebelled against Him and were still estranged from Him at that moment!  So what is His decision, based on these feelings?  He say He will not unleash anger, will not completely destroy them, but will instead bring them back from captivity, bring them home again!

What a wonderful picture of hesed love and how it acts in the midst of broken commitments!  What do we see about hesed here?  It not only binds itself by covenant to keep on loving, blessing and being faithful, but also it is love that goes BEYOND the covenant and keeps on loving, blessing and being faithful even when the covenant is broken!  Since hesed is similar in concept to grace, what does this passage tell us about God's grace?  It tells us that it keeps on coming to us even if we fail!  

Our failures don't stop God's grace!  Our broken promises and commitments to God don't change His love or favor toward us one bit, for His grace is dependent not on us but on Him.  What does this passage say is the reason God's love acts like this in relenting from giving up on people?   The reason is because He is God and not a man!  God's nature is so different than ours that He doesn't return evil for evil!  He doesn't give up on people!  He doesn't respond tit for tat.  He just keeps on loving because that is WHO He is!  He is Love!  He is Grace!  He is unmerited, free favor and favors!  So we learn something important about grace from this passage:  no matter what I do, no matter how far gone I seem to be, His grace will still be there for me, for I can't outsin the grace of God!  Grace is the love of God that goes beyond failure and just keeps on accepting and blessing us! It's a love that just can't stop loving us, can't stop helping us, can't let us go...</sup>

Day 6 - Love That Acts - 30 Days of Grace

We have seen how the word 'hesed', translated 'faithful love', is the Old Testament word most similar to the New Testament idea of grace.  It means love that is faithful and loyal.  The word, as I have studied it, has three main ideas behind it - the idea of love, the idea of strength, and the idea of faithfulness.  So it is a strong, committed love that God has for us!  This word is often used in the covenants made in the Old Testament, so it is considered a covenant word.  This word means love that has bound itself to be there for the other, to always act for the benefit of the other and to stand with the other and defend or support them with all one's resources and with one's very own life. So this word that is similar to grace is steady, faithful, committed love that doesn't just 'feel' loving and tender and affectionate, no!  This is love that acts!  It acts on our behalf to help us!  What does this faithful love and graciousness of God move Him to do for us?

⁷ I shall make mention of the lovingkindnesses of the Lord, the praises of the Lord,
According to all that the Lord has granted us,
And the great goodness toward the house of Israel,
Which He has granted them according to His compassion
And according to the abundance of His lovingkindnesses.
⁸ For He said, “Surely, they are My people,
Sons who will not deal falsely.”
So He became their Savior.
⁹ In all their affliction ^[f]He was afflicted,
And the angel of His presence saved them;
In His love and in His mercy He redeemed them,
And He lifted them and carried them all the days of old.

Is. 63:7-9

In these verses, Isaiah is recounted the lovingkindnesses (the acts of steadfast love/grace) of God toward Israel in time past.  What does he say that God's loyal love and grace moved Him to do for them?

First, He granted them great goodness.  God's grace acts to bless us!  His grace moves Him to pour out His goodness on us, for free - just because of His nature of love, not because of anything in us that merits it. He gives good things because of His compassion and steadfast love/grace!  So we don't need to be or do anything for God to love and bless us!  He gives to us freely out of the goodness of His heart and the graciousness of His nature!  He gives to us because He is good, so we don't have to worry that we first need to be good to receive any blessing from Him.  He gives solely out of who He is, with nothing required on our side to make Him give.  This shows me God isn't stingy or withholding good from us.  No, He wants to give!  He loves to give!  That's His nature, that's His heart of love toward us!  He isn't against us but for us.  He isn't keeping things back from us but instead releasing all thing to us!  All for free!  That's grace!

Okay so what else did this great love and grace of God move Him to do for Israel?  Well, secondly, He made them or called them His own people.  He chose them.  He set it up so they would be His own.  He made or started a relationship with them.  He called them friends.  He called them His children.

Third, He became their Savior. He became their rescuer.  He delivered them from the enemy, the Egyptians, and freed them from the enslavement of the enemy.

Fourth, in all their affliction He was afflicted.  He took on their pains and sorrows.  He felt what they felt.  Their plight moved Him to act.

Fifth, He saved them by the Angel of His Presence.  He was present with them.  He stayed with them.  He never left them.  His very presence was with them and saved them.  It was a protecting presence and a guiding presence as well as a glory presence that brought awe and wonder.  It let them know that they were never alone.  He was personally there for them and with them. 

Sixth, He redeemed them.  He bought them back from slavery.  He bought them to be His own people.  He showed they were valuable to Him by buying them back.  He counted them as precious to Him by getting them to be His own.

Seventh, He lifted them up.  He didn't leave them where He found them.  He lifted them up to know and experience His love and a relationship with Him.  He lifted them up to experience freedom and victory.  He lifted them up to be able to praise, have hope and rejoice.  

And lastly, He carried them all the days of old.  He took care of them.  He provided for them.  And He carried them through to their destination.  He made sure that they got where He wanted them to go, to the Promised Land of plenty, rest and peace.  He did the work.  He brought them through!

This is just what God's grace does in our lives!  How do all these things God did relate to how His grace moves Him to act in our lives?  Well, out of His grace (steadfast and committed love that gives freely out of God's nature and not out of something we have to do), He gives good things to us, He calls us His own children, He became our Savior, He hurts when we hurt, He saves us through His presence and life, He redeems us from sin and the enemy, He lifts us up to where He is and His victory, and He carries us through and completes the work He began in us!! 

Wow, what wonderful grace!  In the Old Testament He did all these things for Israel, and in the New Testament He does all these things for us as believers!  How does He do these things?  Through the finished work of His Son, Jesus!  What wonderful grace!

There is one other part of God's amazing faithful love that is seen later in Israel's history.  It is the faithfulness of His love toward those who fail.  It shows us how grace acts even when we mess up and fall.  That is so important and relieving.  So let's look at that next time..

Day 5 - Grace in the Old Testament - 30 Days of Grace

I want to take a bit of time and think about the concept of grace back in the Old Testament, then I want to look at the idea of grace in the New.  So first, grace in the Old!

It seems like the word grace isn't used much in the Old Testament.  the Hebrew word 'hen' means grace and it's use is not so much.  But I found as a studied that the word that most closely resembles the New Testament concept of grace back in the Old Testament is the Hebrew word 'hesed.'  Wow, what a rich word!  It is translated in many ways, like mercy, loveingkindness, steadfast love, faithful love, and loyal love.  It is very often linked with the work 'emet' which means truth or faithfulness.  These two words put together show us something of the character of God.  What do they show us?  That He has a love for us that is loyal and that He is faithful and committed to us!  We can trust this God to love us, to keep on loving us, and to be there for us and keep His word to us!

²¹ But this I call to mind,
    and therefore I have hope:

²² The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
²³ they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
²⁴ “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.”

Lam. 3:21-24

These wonderful verses help me to understand the meaning of hesed better.  Here hesed is translated as steadfast love.  It's linked with God's compassions, or mercies.  What do these verses say about God's love and compassion?  

First, they say that His steadfast love never ceases.  So if we are seeing this word as an Old Testament way of talking about grace, we see that grace is God's steadfast love that never stops.  It goes on and on. It keeps on going no matter what.  It goes on, no matter what we do, think, say, believe, or become.  It goes on no matter what bad choices we make, no matter how many times we run away or rebel.

Second, I see that His grace is so immense in scope that it never comes to an end.  It is unending.  It is so big and vast that there is no end to it.  We can't reach the end of it or run out of it.  We'll never come to a place where there is no more grace for us. No matter what dark alley we find ourselves in, whether by enemy attack or our own wrong turns, no matter how far we fall or how far we run away from God, wherever we end up, His grace is right there for us!

Third, I see that His grace is new every morning, it keeps coming to us fresh and new each day.  It doesn't matter what we did yesterday, it doesn't matter what confusion we had yesterday, it doesn't matter what failure or doubt we had  yesterday, today His grace is right there for us, fresh and new and the same as always, as if nothing happened between us!  We can't outsin, outrun, or outlive this grace, love and compassion of God!

Then these verses put the word faithfulness in, which is so common in the Old Testament. What is God telling us about His steadfast love/grace?  He is telling us He will be faithful to always be gracious toward us.  His love won't fail us.  His love won't leave us.  His love won't be deterred.  His love for us will always be there for us.  His love will always find us.  His love will always care for us.  His love will always hold us up.  His love will always work to bless us.  His work will always woo us to turn to Him.  His love will always be fresh and new and unchanged.  No matter what happens on our end, NOTHING is ever going to happen on His end to change His heart of love and His commitment to us!  He will be loyal to and loving toward us no matter what the cost to Himself!!

So what does the presence of this love and the knowledge of this faithfulness toward us do for us?  The verses say it gives us hope!!  It gives us hope because it means we're never too far gone, we're never out of His reach, we're never out of His love.  There is no place where love won't find us.  There is no pit so deep but God is not deeper still, as Corrie ten Boom liked to say.  God grace is bigger than our sin. God's love is deeper than our rebellion. God's faithfulness is stronger than our unbelief.  That gives us hope that no matter what, we can't get away from this love.  That no matter what, there is hope of a new day with God, that nothing can shake His favor and love toward us.  That we can really be free of our sin and in a perfect relationship with Him, no matter what our problems or failures.  

This love won't fail us.  This love just won't let us go!  This kind of love is called grace!  It is unmerited, unearned, freely given, given because of God's nature of love and not needing to be initiated, earned, or brought about by anything on our end. We don't have to be good enough, faithful enough, strong enough, perfect enough, or any other 'enough' to get this love.  It is ALREADY ours!  It is God's heart toward us!  

And more than that, it isn't just an emotion He feels, it isn't just His heart toward us - it is something that moves Him to ACT on our behalf, to bless us and do us good!  It's an active kind of love, this wonderful grace of God!  Let's talk more about how that is so next time..