Only Then

September 10

Grace. Mercy. Compassion. These are words that we understand in only the most elemental way. We can’t know them because we hardly have the capacity to extend them but with superficiality. We can’t understand them, of course, until we need them to be applied to ourselves.

And when we do, perhaps even then, we grasp only the faintest human imitation of these godly qualities. You’re exceeding the speed limit and pulled over by an officer of the law. You would like very much for him to be benevolently disposed toward you, to extend grace to you.

You appeal to his sense of compassion and hope for his mercy—his leniency—to be extended to you as you promise to obey every traffic regulation there is forevermore! Yet each of us must come to the point where, when we see our sin for what it is, we reach out for the grace and mercy of God and are recipients of His compassion. At that point in our lives, we grasp the reality of what these attributes are.

At this juncture, the Lord makes real to us the word in Ephesians 2:6, 7, which says, “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenlies, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His mercy to us through Jesus Christ our Lord.” When we receive His grace, mercy and compassion unto salvation, He also grants to us the unfathomable blessings of eternity! Only then do we fully understand.