Grace, Mercy and Peace
Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love. (II John 1:3)
There was an intriguing form of art which became popular a few years ago. If one gazed into the picture for a period of time, a second three dimensional image would appear within the artwork. It was a challenge to relax and gaze slightly out of focus to keep this deeper image in view, but with practice it became easier. Similarly, there is Christian art that appears as random bars of different thicknesses and lengths, but when you gaze at it the name of Jesus becomes clear. I brought one of these Christian pieces home and noticed that after a few days it became easy to see Jesus almost immediately. Seeing Jesus in the details of our life is a lot like these forms of artwork. At first we can hardly see him at all, but as our journey toward him progresses we see him more and more in everything!
It’s pretty difficult to separate the words grace, mercy and peace, because it is virtually impossible to know peace without grace and mercy. And, there is only one true and lasting source of grace and mercy in this world. It is found in the love God shows us through the shed blood of his dear son and our Savior, Jesus.
Like the forms of obscure art, we struggle to find peace within ourselves, because the world that we know is so void of grace and mercy. We are typically raised by the two cold and hard motivators of this world – the fear of failure and the hope of reward. And, it seems that failure and all of the guilt and shame that accompany it seem to overshadow the fleeting moments we experience reward. The world tempts us to even conclude that Christianity itself is simply another introduction to failure, guilt, shame and condemnation. It’s no surprise that almost all of us resort to various forms of addiction to distract ourselves from such bad feelings.
It’s a real challenge to initially find lasting peace in Christianity. But eventually we can arrive at the point where we begin to realize that we can only experience peace through accepting God’s completely undeserved grace and mercy through the work of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Then, like the Christian art piece, we begin to see Jesus more readily in the details of our life. We’re finally beginning to experience some genuine confidence and peace through Jesus. This is always a milestone in our Christian growth, and we often pause to bask in this first marvelous view of Jesus in our lives through which we actually feel “set free.” Seeing Jesus in the portrait of our relationship with God has become easy, but a far greater challenge is remains ahead.
“For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged,” Jesus said. (Matt. 7:2) And we should not thank God for a love we are unwilling to show others he taught. (Matt. 5:24) Our duty as both obedient children and servants of God is to “love one another” (John 13:34) and “Give as freely as you receive.” (Matt. 10:8) The most daunting challenge of Jesus is to see and treat every person as if Jesus himself. (Matt. 25:35-40) This is all truly against our nature. We find it easy to bask in God’s undeserved love, but struggle to show an equal portion of it toward others. Yet, the next image we are called to see is Jesus in the portrait of others. We are not equipped to do this on our own. But with the help of God’s Holy Spirit within us, perhaps we can begin to see others through Jesus’ compassionate human eyes and see Jesus the Savior and intercessor standing as a shield before others just as God sees them. Only to the degree we are able to truly see and love others, as we believe God sees and loves us, can we truly love them as we love ourselves and begin to embrace the full measure of God’s
Grace, mercy, and peace…