Mercy and Grace

I'm trying to read through the Bible again this year, and admittedly, as every year, I fall behind and then in a frenzy try to catch up, get discouraged and say "oh well, maybe next year." Trying to reschedule in the paper age proved difficult for the perfectionist me; I'd end up with my intended dates scratched out, photocopying a new sheet, ruining that one, and eventually losing track of where I was entirely.  So I am thankful now to have an app that allows me to continue seamlessly, catch up if possible, or just reschedule where I'm at.  I love it.  What it ensures is that I will get through it, even if it takes two years instead of one.  (If you're wondering what the app is, it's the YouVersion Holy Bible.)  I love it because it allows me to press on, despite the failures, as if my failures were never there at all.

As such is God's mercy and grace.  This very topic seems to dominate my mom and my bible studies lately.  What is mercy? What is grace?  What is the difference between the two?  If you google the definition of each, without including "the Christian definition of..." (which gives you every denominational interpretation), you get:

mercy:  noun. Compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm

grace: verb.  Do honor or credit to (someone or something) by one's presence.

Something about the stark simplicity of these definitions is so beautiful.

We all comprehend mercy.  It's not too hard to understand what the term means, maybe because we always beg for it.  I've broken the law; I deserve prosecution to the fullest extent of the law, I beg for mercy.  Mercy is the judge's prerogative at sentencing.  

Grace, however, is much harder to grasp. We tend to remember it in short blurbs: God's unmerited favor, or by acrostics:  God's Riches At Christ's Expense, or God's Righteousness At Christ's Expense.  But I wrestle with the depth of grace.  Somehow there is something "alive" about grace that in my little mind differs from mercy, so I know the above definition, "do honor or credit to someone by one's presence," is perhaps too simple for the biblical concept of grace.  We may have used grace this way derogatorily about some snooty acquaintance, "oh yeah, she GRACED us with her presence." But think about it.  

Grace IS crediting us with God's presence.    

Matthew 1:23 proclaims,  "Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which translated means, 'God with us.'"  When God the just judge issues the sentence to the full extent of the law, there's God the substitutionary Lamb receiving it. Hebrews 9:26 "...but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."  He's paid my price, satisfying the law.  In turn, I've received mercy.  

That's all well and good.  But how does Christ's satisfaction of my debt CHANGE me?  If I was a murderer before sentencing, am I not still a murderer after, even after my debt to society has been paid?  Titus 3:4-7 tells us the good news, "But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life."  It's pretty obvious that not only did He save me from the debt of sin, he changed me as if I never sinned.  I am adopted into his family by his blood.  

In John 14, Jesus says that He is the truth (vs. 6), that He will send the Spirit of Truth to us, that he will ask the father to send Him (vs. 16), that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth (vs. 17),and that not only do you [disciples] know the Spirit of Truth, but he will be IN you (vs. 17).  So literally grace is God's presence, not only WITH us, but IN us. His mercy regenerates and renews us, resulting in his grace [presence IN US] justifying us. To sum it up simplistically, mercy is granted us, grace enables us.  

More on this next post.  Until then, 

"Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed,

Because his compassions fail not.

They are new every morning:  great is thy faithfulness.

The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him"

Lamentations 3:22-24