At the end of last week we looked at both the justice of God and the mercy of God. We saw that these two attributes (like all of God's attributes) are not in opposition with each other but are each equally part of His unitary being. His justice is His judgement upon all things in fairness and consistency with who God is. God being all wise and all knowing and Holy (and all His other attributes) are the basis of His judgement and by this we can trust that He is just. In His mercy, He withholds the punishment due to mankind for those who trust in the redemptive work of His son the Lord Jesus Christ. For God to be just, He must be consistent and equal. All unrighteousness must be punished but by His grace and mercy our punishment was not withheld, it was poured out in full on the only man to walk this earth with no offence against God and that was His son Jesus Christ.

Mercy and grace are often associated together. Simply defined, Grace is God giving us what we don't deserve and mercy is not giving us what we do deserve. God's mercy is by not personally punishing us for our sin but by pouring out His wrath on Christ. Grace is whereby God gives us what we don't deserve. Not only are we not punished we are given eternal life with God and have been made co-heirs with Christ.

This is the nature of God's grace. It's amazing enough that God has withheld the punishment from us that we deserve but He has blessed us abundantly in Jesus Christ. The mind cannot comprehend the full extent of how unworthy we are of the life that we've been given. To the extent we can understand though, we know that we are called to live lives that are worthy of our calling.

Colossians 1:9-12 (NIV)

These verses in many ways sum up why we've been studying the attributes of God. As we seek to know God intimately, we can apply wisdom (meaning skilful living) so that we may live a life that evidences His life to bring His pleasure and glory. It's hard to imagine that the God who knows all and can do all can take delight and pleasure in us but He does.

God's grace is the good pleasure of His will whereby He bestows goodness upon us. Because God is who He is, He has love for the sinner, pities the wretched, spares the guilty, welcomes the outcast and brings favour to the totally undeserving. Because of who God is, when we decide that we need our relationship to be restored back to God, trusting in Jesus Christ, we who were destined for eternal punishment are given exceeding riches. He leads and guides us daily in His goodness and blessings. To lead a dog on a walk, the dog must first come to it's master to allow the master to lead him. We too need to come to the master daily for him to guide us and He will bring about his kindness goodness and blessings. There is no greater example of this in Scripture than Psalm 23.

David was well aware that he was an undeserving sinner but he also recognised that God was his shepherd. That means that he knew that God was the one who looked after him, cared for him and provides all of his needs. The contents of the 23^rd Psalm all are founded on the first line which says, "The Lord is my shepherd". Because the Lord is David's shepherd and the one that he follows and trusts with his life, he receives abundant blessings and has assurance of God's goodness.

Whenever Paul writes about the grace of God it is always in the context of the crucified Christ. In fact, you could summarise all of Paul's teaching on grace from the first chapter of Ephesians.

Ephesians 1:4-8 (NIV)

In John's gospel, he also identifies Christ as the means of grace for all mankind.

This verse can and has been taken out of context on occasions. On it's own some people have suggested that this verse says that Moses only knew law and Christ only knew grace. This idea suggests that the Old Testament is a book of law and the New Testament, a book of grace. The Bible tells us that this interpretation would be very wrong.

The Law was given to Moses by God but it never took origin in Moses. The Law had always existed in the will and moral character of God. When Moses presented the ten commandments on Mount Sinai it became the legal standard of ethics but there was never a time when these commandments did not represent the will of God for mankind.

The Old Testament is a book of law but it's also a book of grace. God's grace was shown to Noah in the sixth chapter of Genesis.

Genesis 6:7-8 (NKJV)

You will also see the same grace shown to Moses in the thirty third chapter of Exodus. Depending on your translation of Bible, you may or may not find the word grace. It may just say favour. But then again isn't grace the unmerited favour of God?

God can ever be anything other than Himself. He isn't changing, developing or growing and so He is, always has been and always will be abounding in grace. If the Old Testament times were all of unbending and intolerant law, we wouldn't have the praise and celebration we see throughout the Old Testament. The whole eleventh chapter of Hebrews would be a total write-off if it weren't for the grace of God. In this great faith chapter, they are all people who failed God in major ways. David slept with someone else's wife and had the husband killed in battle, Moses killed an Egyptian, Rahab was a prostitute and the list goes on. Just as it does today, grace made sainthood possible.

Nobody has ever been saved by anything other than grace. Ever since mankind was banished from the garden, nobody has returned to divine favour by any other means than grace. Grace too has always been given by Jesus Christ. We all know that grace came by Jesus Christ but grace did not wait for His birth in a manger or His death on a cross before it became operative. Revelation 13:8 says that Christ was the lamb slain from the beginning.

In the Old Testament they all looked forward to the coming of the Messiah. Now we look back at the Messiah who has come. Either way, all who came to God came by faith in the redemptive work of Christ. As God's grace is infinite and eternal it has no beginning nor can it end.

When Romans 5 says, "But where sin increased, grace increased all the more", it highlights that regardless of the limited magnitude of sin, it can never overtake the infinite grace of God.

It's hard to do justice to the grace of God in just a few pages. I once did a devo where there were about 20 pages just in summary form of all of the blessings that we are given in Christ the moment we believe. Have you ever had that awkward feeling when someone you regularly are nasty to goes and does something nice for you? You immediately feel remorse for your actions and want to return goodness to that person. When God by His grace has poured immeasurable grace and blessings into your life, you should too want to live a life that brings pleasure to Him.