The mercy of God found me
But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus. God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Ephesians 2:4-8
It is only by God’s mercy that we could be forgiven of our sins. His mercy flows out from His great love that because of His mercy He withholds the punishment we deserve. The plan of God involved the death of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The perfect, righteous Son of God will take on Himself the penalty that we sinners deserve. He became the rejected One for He became the sin on behalf of us the true sinners. We are all powerless to change our situation yet by faith we can receive the grace that God offers so we could be right before Him. By His grace that we receive by faith, He made us alive in Christ. God lets us share in the life of Christ and by this we are no longer spiritually alienated from Him. We have the life of Christ within because His resurrection made it possible for us to be raised from death caused by sin. This gave us the opportunity to be a part of His Kingdom even when confronted by Satan’s temptations while here on earth. We will now be seated with Christ in heaven when we get there. We will share in His rule acknowledging Him as our King. God granted us this privilege because of His mercy. “Those who are victorious will sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat with my Father on his throne” (Revelation 3:21). In fact, we already share this rule as we represent Him and the life He gave us while we are still here on earth. All these He has done for us so He could show the magnitude of His love. We are called upon to provide an example “of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7). The whole of salvation, including the grace and the faith we profess, is a gift of God. He handed it to us and all we need to do is receive it by faith. We give up our efforts on attaining for ourselves what we could not have instead by faith we let God provide what He alone could deliver. “There is a great difference between Adam’s sin and God’s gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:15).
Blessings,
Noel De Guzman
www.my-wbc.com