Day 23: The Grace Of Jesus Is Offered To All People

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

»  Take a moment and imagine what it would feel like to never doubt God’s love and forgiveness for you, ever again. Make this your goal.

»  Today, when you encounter mean people, make up a story that will help you forgive their actions. (They just found out they have cancer; their spouse just died; Something.) Then pray for God’s grace to penetrate their lives.

»  Practice the memory verse.

QUOTE

“God proved His love on the Cross. When Christ hung, and bled, and died, it was God saying to the world, ‘I love you.’” - Billy Graham

SCRIPTURE

“For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all.”
- 2 Corinthians 5:14

DEVOTIONAL

God so loved the entire world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever would believe in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life. Christ came into the world to save sinners. It is not His will that any should perish. He wants all people to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth. Christ gave Himself as a ransom for all people. He is reconciling the world to Himself through Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. He has given to us the ministry of reconciliation, as His ambassadors. So we implore you, on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God!

That paragraph is a summation of just a few of the legion of verses in the Bible that declare God’s great love for all people. Yet, in spite of this clarity, we have two common questions. The first is, “Does God really mean ME?” Can it really be true that God, in Christ, is not counting my sin against me? Is it really true that, because of Jesus, and through faith in Him, my sin is gone, off the scorecard, thrown away? This absolutely sounds too good to be true, but Christ died for you and your sin. All of it, forever. Believe it, and thank God for it. Feel the tonnage of the burden of your sin lifted off of your back, and experience the freedom that is yours because Jesus credited it to you. Breathe in the clean air of deliverance.

The second common question is, “Does God really mean HIM?” We consider the most heinous acts of depravity, and we know that there are people who are simply too far gone. They have done too many sins that are too gross, and in too great a volume, to ever be forgiven by God. Yes, God really means them, too. Moses was a murderer, but God chose him. David was a sexual abuser and a murderer, but God made him into a man after His own heart. Saul dragged Christians from their homes and supervised their executions at the edge of town, but God saved him and turned him into the author of most of the New Testament books. There are hundreds of stories in the Bible just like theirs.

No one is beyond the reach of God’s grace through Jesus. Not you. Not anyone.