Hey ya, welcome back! As you may remember, last week we discussed the difference between loyalty and faithfulness. Today, we will focus on God’s mercy and grace as sinners in the world. To begin, what is a sinner? By biblical definition, a sinner is someone who freely chooses to live outside of the will of God, in open, voluntary disobedience and contradiction to His law and commands. The bible goes on to explain that we ALL are born with an inherent sinful nature, due to Adam’s sin in the Garden of Eden (willingly eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, despite God’s explicit instruction NOT to). In other words, before we as humans have any true consciousness of sin and what it truly means, we already have a predisposition to it.
So, keeping in mind our sinful nature, now let’s focus on God’s mercy and grace. What is God’s mercy? Mercy, has to do with God’s compassion and lovingkindness (grace) toward us, in relation to punishment that we rightfully deserve due to our sin. Out of His great love for us, God withholds punishment, and grants us forgiveness. Therefore showing His unmerited favor (grace) upon us. God’s grace is a reflection of His love and kindness towards humans. But, the question is, is grace something earned of our own merit/acts, or is it something that God CHOOSES to grant us?
The following scriptures may help shed some light on this question…
“If we are faithless, He remains faithful [true to His word and His righteous character], for He cannot deny Himself.” –2 Timothy 2:13
“It is because of the Lord’s lovingkindnesses that we are not consumed, Because His [tender] compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great and beyond measure is Your faithfulness.” -Lamentations 3:22-23
“God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken and will He not make it good and fulfill it?” –Numbers 23:19
“He saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we have done, but because of His own compassion and mercy, by the cleansing of the new birth (spiritual transformation, regeneration) and renewing by the Holy Spirit,” –Titus 3:5
“since all have sinned and continually fall short of the glory of God,” –Romans 3:23
“But God clearly shows and proves His own love for us, by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” –Romans 5:8
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God [that is, His remarkable, overwhelming gift of grace to believers] is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” –Romans 6:23
“HAVE MERCY on me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions.” –Psalm 51:1
Knowing now what He has revealed to us in His word, what would you say the answer is…?
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