“I do know this: I am here – a husband, a father, a grandfather, a friend – only by His Grace and His Mercy. I have learned to listen when God whispers in my ear. It has saved my life before.” – excerpt from Scott’s Story
“So grateful for life itself, just being able to wake up in the morning and still be living and breathing and attached with arms and legs, and having my family. ” – excerpt from Family Restored
“it is a miracle of Christ that we have been able to stay close enough through this to even have a chance at saving our marriage.” – excerpt from John’s Story
“Yet, he met me there anyway, the instant that I looked up. That’s the grace He’s talking about. Grace sufficient enough to forgive me, grace enough to forgive all of us.” – excerpt from Hope? Nope. All out of That.
A couple of days ago we posted the predecessor to this post, When We Don’t Get What We Deserve. In that post, we talked about the love God shows us through mercy when we don’t get things right. The stories we featured talked about times that some among us needed to be rescued from the mess we had made of our lives. 
so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. – Ephesians 2:7
Today’s promise shows the flip side, and talks about the grace God shows us through the kindness He displays towards us, regardless of whether or not we get things right. When we get desperate enough to call out to God , we find the mercy we talked about in the previous post, and something about us changes. God begins to tear down the walls we’ve built around ourselves and begins to build something new, something good and refreshing. This is a passage from The Bible, that covers what we’ve been talking about.
It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
– Ephesians 2:1-10 MSG
Take another peek at the featured stories in the previous post. They are the same stories featured above, but now we see the grace, the loving kindness of God towards us. Now we can begin to see how through the death of His Son, Jesus Christ, God uses mercy and grace to wipe our slates clean, all for His glory and good purpose.
“For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” – Hebrews 8:12
This grace is for each of us. It’s a gift, and we can’t work hard to earn it. Regardless of where we’ve been, what we’ve done, or what we’ve endured, we can still come to receive ours. If we’ve done it before, and found ourselves in yet another mess, we can come back to receive it again. He is ready to shower us in this mercy and grace the minute we call on Him. Every time we call on Him. Why? Because he loves us that much.
If you haven’t yet asked for God to help you our of the mess you’re in, you can do that by simply accepting His gift of salvation by saying a prayer like this, “Dear God, I am guilty, too. Please have mercy and help me change. I believe your Son, Jesus, died for my sins, and want to experience your gift of grace. Amen.” That gift is for all of us, and any of us can ask for it at anytime. We can come back as many times as we need to. His grace won’t run out, and He won’t get tired of us asking for His help. If this is new to you, feel free to reach out to us and tell us your story. You are not alone.
You can DOWNLOAD and PRINT today’s journal page HERE.
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What is it you’re facing? Nobody goes into battle alone. We can stand with you. Let us know in the comments below how we can pray for you, or by submitting your story.
He will fight for you.
Hope Shack 