What Grace Provides

For a little while grace has been shown from the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a peg in His holy place.

Ezra 9:8

Some things in life come in pairs: socks, pant legs, gloves, a bird’s wings, scissors’ blades, and a coin’s sides. Mercy and grace are in that same category. Mercy is not receiving a negative outcome we deserve, while grace is receiving a positive outcome we don’t deserve. If God were a coin, grace and mercy would be His two sides.

Mercy spares us from hell, while grace delivers us to heaven. The nation of Israel had been shown mercy many times, until God finally sent them into captivity. But then, after seventy years, grace intervened and a remnant of Israel returned to the homeland, the Holy Land. Just as grace gave Israel a place in the Temple’s Holy Place, so grace gives us a place in God’s Holy City, the new Jerusalem. Mercy prevents, and grace provides—the two sides of God’s love.

Thank God today for His mercy and grace—the hell you have avoided and the heaven you have attained.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first begun.

JOHN NEWTON