Humiliated to Grace

There were quite a few things about this week's devotionals that stuck out to me, but I really want to focus on grace. When I was reading through all of the scripture and devotionals, I noticed that a lot of them dealt with treating people equally. This led me to a discovery. While I might have a million and one differences with the person sitting next to me, there is one similarity that narrows that gap by infinity. That one thing is grace. Regardless of whether or not that person decides to acknowledge it or take hold of it, Christ died for them and loves them in a way that they will never know by not stepping up to the call of grace. How do I portray this grace to people? Humility. The most tangible way to show God's grace to others is by treating them with grace myself. This means forgiveness even when I don't feel like it and serving when I have nothing left to give. Jesus fills me with His grace so that I can pour it out on others, not to build a bigger and bigger reservoir.

Wednesday's reflection talked briefly about craving abundance and craving Jesus. In my women's Bible study, we are going through A.W. Tozer's "Knowledge of the Holy." This week I had the great pleasure of teaching on the grace of God. (This year in general has been very humbling for me. If you ever want to put your insignificance into perspective, lead a study on the attributes of God.) Anyhow, in this chapter Tozer writes:

"We can never know the enormity of our sin, neither is it necessary that we should. What we can know is that 'where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.' To "abound in sin: that is the worst and the most we can do. The word abound defines the limit of our finite abilities; and although we feel out iniquities rise over us like a mountain, the mountain, nevertheless, has definable boundaries: it is so large, so high, it weighs only this certain amount and no more. But who shall define the limitless grace of God? Its "much more" plunges our thoughts into infinitude and confounds them there. All thanks be to God for grace abounding."

And so, when we put things into the perspective of eternity, we can see life in the light of God's infinite grace. The very word "infinite" is enough to send me to my knees, but the fact that His grace is sufficient to cover all of my sin should round me into a state of humble service. Abundance is only what we are capable of, it has limits, but Jesus is infinite and fills us continually. How much pride could we possibly have in the presence of an infinite being? The answer: an abundance. But that's nothing God can't cover.