Grace? What's That?: Devotions from Time of GraceSample

Grace? What’s that?

Every trade and every craft has its own jargon. That special “inside talk” sometimes uses ordinary English words but gives them totally different meanings. For instance, you may have a sister, i.e., a female sibling. In carpenter talk, though, a “sister” is a short piece of wood that is used to reinforce a joint between two ceiling or floor joists.

In day-to-day conversation, the word "grace" means that someone moves fluidly and beautifully. We admire a dancer’s graceful steps or a figure skater’s graceful twirls. It can be a woman’s name. It can mean a prayer of thanks before you eat: to “say grace.”

But when you read it in the New Testament, and you will see it a lot, it means something else entirely. It means nothing less than that God chooses to love the unlovable, just because. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Grace means that God went first to rescue us. Grace means that the purchase of our freedom was 100 percent God’s doing. Grace means that the pressure is off you to perform, that you can always find a resting place in your Savior.

Grace means that God’s love for you is unlimited and unconditional. You can exhale now.