It’s easy for us to presume that God’s grace and forgiveness is available only to those who have shown — by their lives — that they are worthy of it.  But there’s a story that points to the unlimited grace of God.

       “A prosperous downtown church oversaw three mission churches it had started in the city’s poorer neighborhoods.  Each New Year’s Sunday, members of those missions joined the city church for communion, including many who had come to faith from difficult pasts.

       During one service, the pastor noticed a former burglar kneeling beside the very judge who had sentenced him to seven years in prison.  Since his release, the man had become a devoted Christian worker, yet neither man seemed to recognize the other.

       Afterward, as the judge walked home with the pastor, he asked, “Did you notice who was kneeling beside me at the rail?”  The pastor said he had, and the judge replied, “What a miracle of grace.”

       The pastor assumed the judge meant the former convict’s conversion, but the judge said, “I was thinking of myself.”  The judge explained that the burglar knew his need for mercy, while he had been raised with respectability, education, and position.  “Only the grace of God,” he said, “could make me admit that I was a sinner no better than the man I had once sent to prison.”

         When we recognize the limited grace of God, it levels the playing field of life.  It did for the judge, the same as it did for the Canaanite woman whom Jesus called a dog.  It humbled the judge and exalted the burglar.  It humbled the scribes and Pharisees while exalting and offering forgiveness to the paralytic man who was seemingly unworthy.  The unlimited grace of God can move mountains, when those persons in whose lives those mountains acknowledge God’s power to move them.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, make me aware of those around me to whom Your unlimited grace is available. Empower me to lift them up to receive Your grace rather than preventing them from getting it.

         There always seems to be someone somewhere who wants to place a stopper in the hole through which God’s grace freely flows.  And they will use whatever method to restrict God’s grace that is valid for them, even if it is a misunderstanding of the law that God gives to guide us.  So it is that we create laws and bylaws, tools and rules to hinder people from receiving God’s grace.  We even convince ourselves that those roadblocks to God’s grace are legitimate and need to be honored regardless of the circumstance.

         But thank God that Jesus offers us the unlimited grace of God that breaks down the walls that stifle God’s love and allows us to go free.  Thank God that God’s grace — which can be an answered prayer for someone in need of healing — has not been denied by God through religious laws and customs and has been allowed to reach those most in need.  God’s grace is not bound by laws designed to compel us to honor.  God’s grace has become unlimited so that all can benefit from God’s grace so that God can receive the honor.

• What religious laws and customs do you believe are made in an effort to limit God’s grace?
• How have you seen God’s unlimited grace work to set free those in need of God’s grace?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving Christ, I praise you for allowing God’s unlimited grace to reach the lives of those who are in need. Continue to allow those in need of Your grace to find You in faith and believe.

         It’s not always easy to have our limitations removed from our lives.  And the nature of the limitations doesn’t matter.  A hindrance is a hindrance whether it’s physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual.  And if we’re honest, most of what places limitations in our lives is what we are willing to believe.  One writer has said, “Nothing happens, until first, a dream.”  The blind, the lame, the spiritually ostracized — nothing can free them from their limitations until they first believe that their limitations can be removed — that the obstacles preventing them from having a fuller life can actually be remedied.

         When the blind man heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he immediately recognized the presence of God in his midst.  And with that recognition came the belief that Jesus could remove the limitations in his life.  Had he not dreamed of having his eyesight and believed that Chrit could heal him, he never would have called out to Jesus.  And the only thing  that would prevent his liberation would be the limitations that Christ could place on the mercy and grace Christ could offer.  But there is a reality that the key that opens the door to the grace of God begins with our faith.  Without faith (our awareness of the presence of God) the limitations placed on God’s grace belong to us.  We must first free ourselves from our own disbelief, before we can access the unlimited grace of God.  Once we recognize the presence of God among us, the limitations of God’s grace are removed and the world of possibilities opens up.  God’s grace becomes the unlimited power that frees us and creates the possibility for the unlimited grace of God to transform our lives.  It becomes an open invitation in which God invites us to come.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Merciful God, empower my faith in You to deliver me to become the catalyst that sets free Your unlimited grace for me that I may be made whole again.