A Greater Grace

I’ve been reading through the Old Testament for months now and I’ve seen one common theme threaded throughout each book: God’s love is greater than our sin and God’s grace towards His people is endless. Where sin was abounding in the lives of the Israelites, God’s grace abounded more. Each minor prophet proclaimed a similar message that focused on three important elements of God and how He interacts with His people: In Justice, in love, and in grace.

Speaking from experience, I understand how hard it is to see God’s loving-kindness in the Old Testament because of the amount of darkness that comes with God’s righteous judgment. But it is crucial that we understand that this false conclusion we have come to is not because God’s word holds error, but rather our interpretation of who God is has been skewed. As Christians, we need to submit to God’s word, and through that, we will better understand how God defines His grace, justice, and love.

The God of the New Testament is the same as the God in the Old Testament (Hebrews 13:8). Just as Jesus is gentle and lowly, so is God. We need to understand the context and big picture of the Old Testament before we start placing false labels over it. God is justice. God is righteousness (Psalm 89:14). God is love (1 John 4:16). God is the holiest of holies (Psalm 96:9). For these reasons, His actions are justified and He acts according to His promises and commands. Because He is justice, only God determines what perfect justice is. Because God is the giver of grace, only God can determine what good grace is. Because God is love, only God can determine what this perfect love is.

I say all of this because, with this proper mindset, God’s grace is undeniable in the Old Testament, even in the dark days of judgment upon Israel. But this grace will most likely not match up to the sweet and prosperous image of grace we have come to understand, but rather it looks quite different. Sometimes grace looks like God in His perfect righteousness, casting judgement on the guilty. Intentionally breaking down His people and depriving them so that He can rebuild and therefore help His people experience the fullness of joy that is Him.

The heart of God is love and compassion. It brings Him deep sorrow when an unrepentant sinner rejects His offer of love. This is why there are so many warnings of judgement in the Bible. He doesn’t ever want a soul to be lost. That is why He sent Jesus, the spotless lamb who paid the price of sin in full and sealed our salvation for eternity.

The Lord has made us. He knows what we need. God alone is what can satisfy and He will go to extreme measures to teach that to us in a way that grabs our attention. God’s love often looks like Him stripping us of our pride and idols because He wants all of us. He wants us to live a life of undistracted devotion to Him. In His perfect justice, He will place judgement where needed. In His perfect love, He will use this darkness to make room for His people to experience the light of life

This is grace.

God, going out of His way to help us draw near to Him. He will bring us low. He will remove all of the temporary clutter and junk that we have been worshipping over Him. He will graciously take away the things in our life that will not satisfy so that we can come to know the One who will. When He brings us to such a raw, weak, vulnerable, broken state, we will recognize our total depravity and our desperate need for something greater: Jesus himself.

Although the process of pruning is painful, it is leading to something that is lasting and sweeter than the things that were taken away from us. This is something to rejoice about!! The love that God has for us is too great for Him to let us sit and toil with sin and temporary desires.

The Lord loves us enough to perform such an act of grace and divine intervention. He is love and it is His hearts greatest pleasure to draw near to sinners with a free offer of forgiveness and new life. He formed us in our mother’s womb. He breathed the breath of life into our lungs. He made us, therefore only He knows what we need to survive and live a life of great joy.

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“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

John 10:10

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He cares for us enough to destroy the sin that is destroying us. Even if that looks like He is removing something that brought us pleasure in life and leading us to a temporary spot of suffering. Every motive behind the actions of the Lord is done out of a just, righteous, Biblical love.

» "And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you…" 1 Peter 5:10

» "More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us…" Romans 5:3-5

» "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away...” Revelation 21:4