Day 4 - His Abundant Grace

Rom 5:15But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.

Rom 5:12-21 talks a great deal about the grace of God. Grace, in its simplest terms, is His divine favour. This grace can affect our lives in a number of different ways, but the most obvious is through mercy. God chose to extend grace to us in Jesus Christ. This means that although we didn’t deserve mercy, He gave it anyway because of His love (Rom 5:8).

We do this with one another often. Since we are imperfect, we make many errors, some of them small, some of them large. Throughout the day, we may inadvertently say things that could hurt others, and otherwise step on people’s toes, but we learn to move past these – we extend grace. But if someone wrongs you in a big way like marital unfaithfulness, it can be much harder for us to remain gracious.

But the free gift of grace is not like the offense of sin – it is much greater (Much More). So God’s grace abounds to us in the sense that no matter what we do, what sin we commit, or how we have hurt people, there is always mercy available to us. We simply need to confess our sin and turn away from it (1Jn 1:9). While we may have to deal with the consequences of sin (e.g. apologising to people, making restitution or perhaps even face legal action), God has freed us from its eternal penalty through His grace.

This is huge. Adam’s sin, although it led to horrific results, was one act. But God’s grace abounds Much Morein that it deals with every sin that every person has ever committed or ever will commit. You could say that Christ's work on the cross was far greater in extent than Adam's sin.

Thank God for His grace!

Consider:

How do I feel about the fact that God has taken my guilt away?

How does this make me feel towards others who do wrong to me?