God’s Pure Grace

Closing out another year. It seems like so many of them have already passed, and so few stand before yet to come. If the average person lives 80 years, then I have 1800 weekends left. A sobering thought, indeed.

There’s never enough time any longer to just think. The world seems like it’s going insane —a president that can’t make time nor place in his heart filled with self for the care of those he’s supposed to be governing. A mainstream media that has lost all their bearings, promoting a worldview so far distant from reality as to almost be a joke. And a people who’ve lost their way in the mire of everyday life.

On what can we rely? There is only one constant, one sure thing. God’s pure grace.

But what is God’s grace? We can look at God’s words to Moses, for instance:

And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. -Exodus 33:19

But wait —is this truly the God of the Scriptures? A God who tells us we have no choice, no impact in the world? There are those who would say this is so, that God knows men will never seek him, and he must drag them to him against their wills. A God who will do as he pleases with the world, not because he loves, but rather because he desires glory. Or, taking the alternate view, is this a God who will keep his promises only when faith is constant? Only when men can please him will he love.

Are either of these options a message of hope for the year gone by, and for the year to come? Is this all Christianity can offer? I hope not —for if either of these are true, then there is no hope in the years past, nor in the years to come. Is there hope in a God who is not constant, or who is capricious?

No.

But if we read the entire context, we find something completely different is the object of God’s statement. He has promised faithfulness to Moses, and he has promised faithfulness to Israel. Why has he promised these things? Because of the faith of Abraham and the humility of Moses. Because men believe.

And the promise of salvation, the promise of good that comes from God, is always and ever based simply on faith in his Word, his Promises. As we have faith, God fulfills the works we cannot, and brings us to places we cannot go —into his presence.

No, God is not capricious, and he does not only love us so long as our faith is perfect. God loves us because of his pure grace, the grace of a promise kept no matter what the other person decides to do, or say.

May we pray the prayer of Moses this coming year —that we might see the glory of God, and learn his name. For there stands a promise and a love that we truly cannot understand in this life, in this coming year.

God’s pure grace is our only hope, the foundation of our salvation. Let us grab hold of that grace in the promises of God in faith, and step into the new year.