Love and Grace

Grace, grace, God's grace...

The lines of the chorus to that hymn are playing over and over again in my head this morning.

Grace greater than all our sin

Grace greater than ALL our sin. The Wednesday night Bible study that I attend, is going through Philip Yancey's book What's So Amazing About Grace? For me, the theme of unconditional love, keeps popping up in day to day life: conversations with friends, experiences at work, podcasts, sermons, Sunday School, Bible readings.

I have 2 thoughts running through my head this morning.

First: the act of grace is a result of the love one has for another.

Second: God commands us to love as He loves, and His love is completely unconditional.

Let's start with the second thought. It hit me yesterday during the church service, God's love is completely unconditional. Romans 5:8 says, "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (NKJV)

We are loved by God whether we have accepted His gift of salvation or not. We are loved by God if we are murderers, thieves, rapists, addicted to child pornography, liars, rebellious, lazy, addicted to food or drugs or sex. We are loved by God even after we have rejected Him. We are loved by God if we've accepted His gift of salvation and then chosen to walk away from Him. We are loved by God, even if we've never heard His name. God's love, in itself, is unconditional, non-performance based. There is nothing we can do, or not do, that can cause God to love us more or less. And that is true for every individual that has ever, and will ever, live and breathe on this earth.

(Please note, I am not saying every individual has received salvation, totally different topic...just God's love is completely unconditional. Read Romans 8).

God, in His love for us, chose to extend a gift of life to us, the gift of grace, something that is really to wonderful for us to fully comprehend. Grace covers all our sin. There is nothing to horrible for grace to cover. There is nothing left exposed, it washes clean a lifetime of impurity and naked, awful sin.

I'm not defining grace, just speaking of its action.

It is grace that says, you have hurt me incredibly, but I choose to forgive. It is grace that says, yes, you've messed up, and will probably mess up again, but I allow you back in my life. It is grace that says, we can move past this, this relationship can be stronger.

Those are vague interpretations of real, messy life situations, where hurt cuts deeps, and life doesn't seem as if it will ever be put together again. But the choice to love and to extend grace, no matter what the other person has done, that is the mark of a Spirit-filled believer.

I want to close with this Scripture from 1 John 4:7-16,

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved GOd, ut that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God t any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected un us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

There is so much more to be said of grace and of love, and what the outworking of the two should look like in our lives.

These 2 topics have been major themes of my life this year, and there will probably be many more posts on these topics in the weeks and months to come, but for now, something to think about, for me and you...

Can others tell I follow Christ by the love and grace I show in my relationships with others?