By Deacon Doug Brosky
The Board of Stewardship has established the theme for the daily Lenten devotions as mercy and grace. The question that immediately came to mind was what is the difference and or similarities for these two words we hear so often. Well, I did some exploring and found what may be a helpful aid for these devotions.
Simply stated Mercy is the act of withholding deserved punishment. Grace is the act of extending to someone unmerited favor. These two words are if you will, different sides of the same coin; God’s love for you and me. God is Holy and sinless and as such cannot accept into his eternal presence a sinful person. Therefore, God cannot extend his mercy unless first until our sin is removed. This God did in sending his son to pay the price to remove our sin that we could never pay. Only then can you and I experience God’s grace because of our faith in Jesus we are now in God’s eyes forgiven and acceptable to God the Father because of what his Son has done.
Not only during in Lent but all our lives God’s love first extends to us undeserved mercy and then because of our faith in our Lord Jesus we receive his Grace and the assurance of spending an eternity with him.