The grace of God

I haven’t written much lately on the greatest creation, idea, execution of God. I will, now.
As the world battles all the culture wars, and we can’t seem to get together on most ideas, there is this:
Throughout the years, and it has indeed been years (decades) now, I’ve learned so many, many things. One thing I’ve learned is that without the grace of God, the mercy that keeps on giving and keeps on changing and keeps on molding and loving and shaping and governing and taking and giving and making me be who I can be can never be fully accessed.
The Apostle Paul said it this way about a bout with his strength versus the creator’s: “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that the Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
What makes good ministry? Great grace.
What makes good parenting? Great grace.
What makes good marriages? Great grace.
What makes life and life abundant? Great grace.
I am not, but He is.
I cannot, but He is.
I wish I could, but He does.
Grace is, well, gracious when we are weary and we fall to whatever sends its tentacles of sin at us. Be it ego, pride, anger, or even the most malicious of all, false belief in our strengths. When it happens, grace reaches out and calms and soothes and picks up the fallen.
John’s Gospel tells us that the law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Grace and its bedfellow truth came because Jesus came. Grace showers you with love, mercy, compassion and all good things. Grace is undeserved pardon, the kind believers get when they simply accept Jesus as Lord.
It is not earned. It is not deserved. It is not to be milked, though I do.
So, today I ‘m going to adapt a prayer from the New Zealand book of prayer from a friend.
“O God, it is your will to hold both heaven and earth in a single peace. Let the design of your grace love shine on the waste of our wraths and sorrows, and give grace to your Church, to its peoples, grace among nations, grace in our homes, and grace in our hearts.”
And may this Sunday be especially filled with grace, not earned but given. May you find the road rises up to meet you in ways you can’t imagine because God is there awaiting you.
It is indeed sufficient.
Billy Turner is a pastor of the United Methodist denomination and a retired journalist.