You’re on a journey. It’s a journey that requires you to follow a guide. The guide knows what you don’t know. Your guide knows the pitfalls that lie ahead on the journey. You soon learn you must follow His lead no matter what happens. At first you fight it. You’d rather do it your own way.
Then you come to realize the wisdom of following an experienced guide. That Guide, of course, is God. You learn to place your trust in Him on your spiritual journey. It becomes easier once you begin to see that grace accompanies everything God does as He leads you.
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.
John 10:27-19
I used to think it was all about love for love is the nature of God. As His beloved, forgiven, redeemed, justified, and sanctified children, we have the nature of God in us. Now I think it is as much about grace as it is about love. Love has grace attached to it. To some extent the two are inseparable. By grace you are saved through faith.
Where you see love you will also see grace. Where you see grace you will also see love.
If a person believes they love their neighbor but there is no grace toward their neighbor, it appears they don’t really love their neighbor. I’ve never heard a sermon about the connection of love with grace in the way I’m presenting it–that you can’t have love without having grace–but it’s something I’ve noticed on the practical, spiritual side.
And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.
2 Corinthians 9:8 ESV
Our Guide, King Jesus, says the least of these shall be the greatest in God’s kingdom. I wonder why we hold back on loving others and grace giving. Little things happen all the time where we make choices whether to do or not to do. One happened to me tonight.
A friend called and I debated whether to answer the phone. I wasn’t in the mood for a long conversation. But I picked up and was glad I did. She immediately burst into tears. She was emotionally reeling from a work-related incident. While we were talking, she learned from her son that someone dear had just passed on, which meant more tears and that we needed to cut the conversation short.
I’m going to stick my neck out and make a statement that is my own. Grace is a measuring rod for the amount of love is outworking in your life. Little grace, little love. Lots of grace, lots of love. I think it works that way.
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