Do You Not understand Grace?

 

 Jeremiah 12:1-4

I’m willing to bet the farm that you, like me, have had this thought, and yet unlike Jeremiah we may not have voiced them to God.  “Righteous are you, O Lord,
when I complain to you; yet I would plead my case before you.  Why does the way of the wicked prosper?  Why do all who are treacherous thrive?  You plant them, and they take root; they grow and produce fruit; you are near in their mouth and far from their heart.  But you, O Lord, know me; you see me and test my heart toward you.  Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and set them apart for the day of slaughter.  How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field wither?  For the evil of those who dwell in it the beasts and the birds are swept away because they said, “He will not see our latter end.”

Jeremiah in some ways is a lot like me, and maybe you, in that he has an understanding that God is righteous, He is pure, God is good and merciful.  Jeremiah complains because he also understands that God is also all knowing and all seeing and so why is He allowing these wicked people to prosper?  Have you ever given thought to, “If I were God” and then fill in the blank as to what you would do to mankind?  Just one big problem, you are not, and your heart is not close to the heart of God.  Would you have sent your Son, your only Son into the world that you being God knew before sending him he would be rejected and killed?  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” 

Do you recall that the wicked are the ones who have God in their mouths but far from their hearts?  Maybe a recall might help, go with me to Jeremiah 4:22, “For my people are fools; they do not know Me.  They are foolish children, without understanding.  They are skilled in doing what is evil, but they do not know how to do what is good.”  We should never forget that judgment always begins with the people of God; these were His chosen, and also, so is His Church.  So the wicked are not far from us we may look at them each day in the mirror, for in that I often want to nuke a people that God so loved that He gave His Son for shows how evil I am.  

And when I’m still and the noise has stopped a small voice speaks to my heart, Bob, I love those people so much, that I’ve done for them what I’ve done for you; do you not understand grace?  It is at that moment that I must confess that I’m ignorant, foolish, and spoke words that were far from the heart of God, far from mercy, far from the grace that was shown to me.   And I confess, as did the Psalmist; “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!  And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

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