This post is based off of the book “The Knowledge of the Holy” by A.W. Tozer

In God, mercy and grade are one, but as they reach us they are seen as two, related but not identical.

• Mercy – God does not give us what we deserve. (“Captured by Grace” David Jeremiah)
• Grace – God gives us what we don’t deserve. (“Captured by Grace” David Jeremiah)

• Mercy is God withholding the punishment we rightfully deserve.
• Grace is God not only withholding that punishment but offering the most precious gifts instead.

• Mercy pays the penalty for our sin at the cross.
• Grace substitutes the righteousness of Christ for our Wickedness

• Mercy closes the door to hell
• Grace opens the door to heaven

• Mercy withholds the knife from the heart of Isaac
• Grace provides a ram in the thicket

• Mercy runs to forgive the Prodigal Son.
• Grace throws a party with every extravagance.

• Mercy bandages the wounds of the mand beaten by the robbers.
• Grace covers the cost of his full recovery.

• Mercy hears the cry of the thief on the cross.
• Grace promises paradise that very day.

Grace takes its rise far back in the heart of God. But the channel through which it flows out to us is Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. The New Testament contains 155 references to grace; 130 of them come from Paul. The word grace opens, closes, and dominates every letter he wrote.

In love, he predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ. In accordance with His pleasure and will – to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has given us in the One He loves. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. Eph. 1: 4-7. 

But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. for it is by grace you have been saved… Eph. 2:4-8

No one was ever saved except by grace. From Abel to the present moment. Since mankind was banished from the Garden, none has ever returned to the divine favor except through the sheer goodness and grace of God. Grace indeed came by Jesus Christ, but it did not wait for His birth in the manger or His death on the cross before it became operative. Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Rev. 13:8

ALL mankind received or reinstated in the fellowship of God came through faith in Christ. In the Old Testament men looked forward to Christ’s redeeming work; since the Cross we gaze back upon it, but always they came – and we come by grace, through faith.

We who feel ourselves alone and far from the fellowship of God can now raise our discouraged heads and look up. Through the cross. we may return as the Prodigal returned, and be welcome. as we approach the Garden, our home before the Fall, the flaming sword is withdrawn. The keepers of the tree of life, stand aside when they see a son of grace approaching.

Categories: Judy Marshall The Knowledge Of The Holy

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