February 19, 2022
Thank you for the nail scarred hands.
Bearing all my guilt and shame,
In love you came and gave amazing grace.
Your Grace is truly amazing. Inspiring – probably why so many songs are written about it. Thank you for loving us, for loving me so much that you extended your grace to cover me. It’s funny how one word can have so many meanings.
Grace: smoothness and elegance of movement. The free and unmerited favour of God. Period officially allowed for payment of a sum due or for compliance with a law or condition.
Greek (Ephesians 2:8): A favour, kindness, disposed to, inclined. (xaris)
Hebrew: Favour, kindness. (Kana).
It doesn’t seem to happen that often where secular, Greek and Hebrew use the same definition. Though from a cursory look, grace in the Old Testament seems to point more to favour with man while the New Testament more often seems to refer to God. And that may be because they would have just had that intense, personal demonstration of Yahweh’s kindness to us.
Proverbs 28:23 – Whoever rebuked a person in the end gain favour, rather than one who has a flattering tongue.
Romans 11:6 – And if by grace, then it is no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace.
Before Christ came, Yahweh used the actions of others to show his grace towards us: his representative so to speak. The sacrificial lamb represented him. The person down the road who gave the clothes off his back. That was Yahweh giving his grace. But so often while we believe, it’s not always until it is seen that the meaning is understood. Probably why he says blessed are those who believe without seeing. When they saw what Jesus went through to save them, there was a greater understanding of that grace that only Yahweh can give.
It’s one thing to kill a lamb to represent Christ, it’s another to see Christ die on the cross. Our generation (or rather the generations after Christ) is blessed to have the two-fold example of Yahweh’s unmerited favour towards us. It’s “easy” for us to look back and wonder how they could not see it, but we are looking back and can trace it. But when you are living it at the moment, it’s not always so easy to see. When we are living our lives, it’s easy to miss so many things, unless you look back and recognise the patterns.
And this is where you see Yahweh’s grace at work (at play) also. There is so much that we miss in the moment, but he covers that. The spaces between the lines that we miss? He fills them in for us. So that when he looks at us, he sees his perfect masterpiece manifested in us. And we see where he fills in the gaps for us so that we can have a better understanding of who he is and what he has done and continue to do. But we also see his perfect masterpiece in us. What he truly desires for us. Great is your mercy towards me!! Thank you Yahweh for your grace, that you choose to save me. To show how much you love me in the most personal way possible. Thank you for that irreplaceable gift. Thank you.
I love pancakes (not like a God kinda love ehhh) but I do love them. Today feels like a pancake kinda day. I only make them like four or five times a year though. Lol. For me it’s like macaroni pie. You eat it too often it loses its specialness.
