Daily Devotional

Have you ever stopped to really contemplate the mercy of God? Our Pastor has often said “If God were to stamp out all sin at midnight, there would be no one left at 12:01.” And how true that statement is. As much as we like to think we please God and are righteous, the fact of the matter is that we stumble, fail, and sin a lot more than we care to admit. Remember that God is a Holy God, and cannot abide sin, not even a little bit. God’s justice demands a penalty for any and all wrongdoing which should be that we are fresh outta luck. John Piper once said, “The gravity of your sin is measured against the dignity of the one you are sinning against, and in God’s case it is an infinite dignity.” This is why sin is such a big deal to a perfect and Holy God.

But thankfully God is not only Holy, just, and righteous, He is also merciful. Now imagine for a moment you are in God’s position, you have created creatures, showered them with your love and blessings, and given them some rules to live by. But they ignore your love, fail to see your blessings, and continue to break your rules over and over and over again. How do you react? Do you do something like an etch-a-sketch and start over? Do you just give them what they want and eternally separate yourself from them? Those are probably the things we would do right, but thankfully God didn’t. He shows mercy, again and again and again. What kind of God with every right to smite every last one of us for disobedience chooses to forgive and not only show mercy but grace as well?

You see God’s justice requires blood for the reality of sin, and He can’t just ignore our sin, that wouldn’t be justice, so what does He do? He offers His Son and a perfect and holy sacrifice in our stead, the propitiation for our sin, a perfect substitute. And allows us to take on the righteousness of His Son by simply acknowledging Him as Lord and believing in Him. That is a very low cost of admission, in fact, it's free. That is grace, getting something we do not deserve and that is how God showed us His mercy, not getting something we absolutely deserve, which is separation from God forever.

We serve an all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present, God who is King of the universe, and He chooses to show mercy and grace to tiny little insignificant you and me. What an amazing and humbling thought. Praise be to God!

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"New King James Version (NKJV) Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved."