Grace AND Mercy

It seems like you can’t talk about one without including the other.

It’s like peanut butter AND jelly,

Red beans AND rice, (for us New Orleans peeps)

Ham AND burger!!

But is one more important that the other?

Is peanut butter more important than the jelly?

Is the rice greater than the red beans?

Can one have a burger without the ham…?

Can you experience/express mercy without the grace?

Grace defined:

Is the free and unmerited favor of God as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowing of blessings. It is God's gift of salvation granted to sinners for their salvation.

Mercy defined:

Compassion or forbearance shown especially to an offender or to one subject to one's power; also : lenient or compassionate treatment.

All I know is I need both!

What about you?

I can’t survive without either! It’s because of God’s grace that I even have a relationship with Him, and it’s His mercy…His kindness and patience with me…that I am even able to live day by day.

It was through a teaching series, which I had the pleasure of being able to listen to, that I began to think about grace and mercy.

This teaching series was about the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-32).

Before this teaching series I was inspired by how the “prodigal son” came to his senses and went back home to beg for mercy from his father…prepared for whatever judgment his father was willing to hand down. And this is as far as I took the parable.

But what I lacked to realize was this is a beautiful picture of God. Sometimes we are the prodigal son, but most times we are the older brother who looks down at his younger brother in disbelief that the father would accept him back into the house after squandering his part of the inheritance.

So, instead of this being a long blog about how much this parable being broken down in this teaching series impacted me, let it be a time of challenge and reflection for you…

If you shall!

Are you able to show grace AND mercy to those whom do you wrong, come at you sideways, lie and bash your good name?

Are you able to show grace AND mercy to someone who may have walked out of your life…wishing you were dead…but came back?

Are you able to receive grace AND mercy from God who welcomes us back into the family…

Puts a robe and ring on us…

Calls for everyone in the village to come and have a party…

Even after we say “No God, I got this, I know what I am doing…I deserve this…I need this” and before we know it we are eating out of the pig trough!

I am relearning how to receive and show grace AND mercy, even when I feel like I am the filthiest thing walking the earth!

Even when life feels like a tug of war!

Daddy God, I pray that you continue to lavish grace AND mercy upon us, not because we deserve it, not because we have made it to the next “level” of some religion…but because the blood of your precious son Jesus washes away all our sins (seen and unseen) and you welcome us back into the house, back into the family after every time we tell you we don’t need you. Thank you for your grace AND mercy, for your kindness and patience!