Grace and Mercy - Part 2

Warning: It's a long one!

I have made a blog post about teaching our daughters to have a habit of showing mercy towards other people, and recently God has taught me another lesson on grace and mercy. In the past, I have struggled so much over how to handle guilt. I carried guilt around like a very heavy burden, wanting to shed the burden, but never quite knowing how. I finally know what to do about guilt! And it's been such a freeing and life-changing thing to learn. I hope to make this another good habit in my life.

In the past, when I would come up against some sin in my life or frustrations in my life, I'd often pick it up like a heavy burden and carry it around and fret about it for a while. I knew God had mercy and grace for me, but the reality of it hadn't sunk deep into my heart. It was more of a head knowledge. In my mind, it was almost like the words mercy and grace were words that were connected only with the initial salvation of a person. And after that, you're supposed to either be perfect, or you're supposed to continually be sorry and repentant for all your sins, or else God is standing far off with his back turned until you straighten up and fly right.

The problem about this thinking is that there are some times when I just don't really feel sorry or repentant, and I would get angry with God for seeming so hard to get along with. Then I'd feel guilty for the initial sin and the sin of being angry with God and for thinking of my God as one that's "hard to get along with." It was like a burdensome cycle that weighed me down more often than not.

But just in the past week or so, it's like God illuminated part of a verse and put it in my heart instead of just in my mind. That part of a verse is in Romans 5:20...."But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:" Why did I never take this to heart before?

The hard fact is that God's wrath is/will be pouring down on sinners. All men are sinners. God's wrath is towards sinners, and that's a hard pill to swallow. But, as probably all of us know, God's son Jesus lived a perfect life, died a horrible death, and "drank" that wrath for sinners, and if they'll but put their trust in His substitutional death, they'll be saved from God's wrath. God's wrath is pouring down, but Jesus' sacrificial death is like an umbrella that I can hide under, and the wrath has been satiated concerning my sins! What an amazing thought!

So for me, there's only mercy and grace! My sin has been and will be abounding, but grace much more abounds for me! For every sin, there's only grace. I have no other hope than to hope in His mercy and grace that truly is new every morning...but not just every morning, every minute of every day. Mercy is abounding at any given moment that I might need it. For years, I've been staring at a plot of ugly weeds (sin and guilt) not realizing that the plot of weeds was only a small part of a hugely vast field of flowers (mercy and grace) that never fade away. Now I want to look up at the flowers of mercy that are always there and always enough! And I want to quit focusing on the weeds, which is actually a selfish thing to do in light of all that Christ suffered to set me free.

This has already been sort of life-changing for me. There's a situation that I've struggled over in the past (and no, I won't tell anyone what the situation is) - something that has caused me to sin over and over again - something that I get angry and frustrated about. The other night, I was in the midst of turmoil over this situation. In the past, I would have struggled with bad feelings about it and just try to sleep it off and forget about it. But this time, I put this new habit into action. Right then when I was feeling angry and sinful and guilty, I realized "His mercy and grace is more than enough for this very sin of mine and for this whole situation." It was a quiet moment of thought, but my heart suddenly wanted to sing praise and thanksgiving to God! I realized I could drop the weight of guilt as soon as I picked it up, and just the thought of the mercy and grace given to me, made my emotions transform instantly. I wanted to run to the God who I so often cringed from! And in the process, realizing the grace extended towards me only made me want to extend grace and mercy towards my frustration. Since giving my "new habit" that first test run, I've been trying to put it into action as often as I think of it. The Bible says "It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not." - Every thing and every moment that is not consumed by God, it's because of God's mercy and compassion. Yesterday, I started worrying because we left Nita with our babysitter (it was our 11th anniversary, btw!). Our Nita is not so fond of being away from mommy and daddy these days, and was also worried about the babysitter being annoyed with our children. Then it hit me that God's mercies are more than enough to get both our babysitter and Nita through whatever happens while we're away! My worry was pretty much instantly gone after that. Now I am wanting to start a habit of realizing that God's mercy is more than enough for any sin that I commit, and any situation that I encounter at any given moment. It is instantly available! And when you realize anew that it's so instantly, abundantly, and freely given to you, it's such a motivator - to do right in the future, to praise God more and more, and to extend mercy and grace towards others.


(I wanted to mention that this blessing I've received was somewhat as a result of listening to what we consider to be a fantastic series of messages on marriage. We both very highly recommend this series, not only to help in a marriage, but just life in general. You can find the mp3's here: http://www.gcchurch.org/pages/index.php?pID=164 Please note that there is a session 4 on the next web page.)