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 “Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.” (2 John 1:3)

At the start of and throughout each new day, we should offer heartfelt expressions of praise and gratitude to a holy God of mercy and grace who is worthy of all honor and glory. This just and righteous God will one day judge our lives and how we’ve used the time, talents, and resources that He has entrusted to our stewardship. First, though, the LORD offers by the gifts of His grace and mercy, the opportunity for forgiveness and salvation through His Son Jesus Christ.

We can be eternally grateful that our praiseworthy Creator is a gracious and merciful God. Grace and mercy are Christlike qualities that we should seek to cultivate in our lives as believers empowered by the Holy Spirit. Opposite sides of the same coin, divine grace and mercy are the roots of God’s willingness to forgive even the most grievous of our sins and acts of rebellion and allow us to enter into a personal relationship with Him through His beloved Son.

Grace is God’s willingness to give us what we do not deserve, whereas mercy is shown when God does not give us what we do deserve. As sinners, we all deserve death as a consequence of our transgressions against this righteous God. Because He loves each of us more than we can humanly understand, however, the LORD has mercifully chosen to extend to us His unmerited favor, the amazing grace that is offered to everyone exclusively by faith in Christ.

Our heavenly Father exhibited the bounty of His grace and mercy when He agonizingly sent His sinless Son to bear the burden of our sins. Jesus faithfully died in our place on the cross to pay our sin debt and to give us the opportunity to have everlasting life in heaven rather than eternal separation from God in hell. Through Jesus alone, this loving God of justice expresses both His grace and mercy to all who wisely choose to trust Christ as their personal Savior.

“Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16)



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