Grace Mercy Peace!

     In studying Romans I noticed how often Paul uses these 3 words: Grace, Mercy, Peace.   These are not words we hear used much today.   They seem foreign to us.  You almost expect to see them removed from the dictionary from their lack of use. 

   Grace is hard to define.  I once heard a pastor say, "Grace stands for, God's Riches At Christ's Expense".   That is nice and simple,  but is that all?   Is it just how God treats ME??    How do I live a life of Grace?   We are able to offer grace to others, but usually on a temporary and need-to-have basis.   Some one is being a jerk because they lost their job or a death in the family... we extend grace to them.   Someone is having a bad day at work.... we extend grace to them.   A person in line at a grocery store with 1 item in hand and we have a cart full of food.... we extend grace and let them go ahead.  That kind of grace is passive in nature.   I don't really have to do anything but let you by and have your way.   God's grace is not just passive.... it extends to action.   Mercy is the active form of Grace.  It doesn't just step aside, but it steps forward to help and to save.

   I was watching a TV show about "Horders".   These are people who are living a life of misery in the filth they have accumulated over many years.    One woman was helping her sister clean her house and as she walked upstairs she was astonished to find the upstairs carpet littered with dog feces.   It was literally everywhere you stepped.  She asked, "How do live like this?"  and her sister replied, "I don't go up there anymore!" .   She has a 2 story house but only lives on the first floor.  She didn't even smell the stench anymore.

   Jesus comes to our doors knocking.  Asking to come in.   Not to have tea, but here to clean up our sin-hording-lives.   We, like that woman, have horded our sins and collected them for so long we are either too ashamed to let people in or we don't even notice them anymore.   At first those sins were small and controllable we felt.  But somewhere along the line they took over.   Like those dogs who took over the woman's upstairs and had crapped all over her floor, our sins made a mess of our lives.   They are our "pet sins" we don't want to get rid of.   Jesus comes and kicks those dogs out and picks up the sin-feces that is all around us and halls it away to the cross for us.   That is MERCY.

   Finally, through that MERCY we can have PEACE, not only him but also with each other.  Our cleaned up homes/lives are not a sign of how great we are but how great he is.   But Jesus doesn't just come to clean your home.  He wants to come and have life with you in you and He wants to clean everyone's home.  He wants us to be on mission with him to help others using the same GRACE, MERCY and PEACE he has extended to us.   How do we do that?

    At the end of the TV program they would show the BEFORE and AFTER pictures of the home.   The people whose lives have been changed often say how they could not have done this on their own and how they owe a debt of gratitude to the people who stepped in and helped.  Other people who watch this show are compelled to call in and ask for their help.   They want what those people have.  We must be willing to show others, like in the TV show, our before and after pictures.   We must be open to allow others to see what Christ has done for us and continues to do for us because, you see, our hording natures have not been deleted.   We get lazy. We get side-tracked.  We get lured back into allowing "the dogs"  back into our homes only to have Christ kick them out again when we call out to God, "Lord have MERCY on me a sinner!"

GRACE, MERCY and PEACE now have new meanings to us.