I feel helpless and alone
Perhaps you feel helpless and alone– so very helpless and alone. On the one hand angry, yet, on the other hand guilty for feeling angry – mixed feelings possess you. The hurt is vivid and heavy. You may be searching for help. You need to understand what is God’s grace and mercy. You need to understand the power of forgiveness. You need to understand what forgiveness is not. A relationship with God through His son, Jesus Christ, is the missing piece. Great news! You can have that relationship right now!
Today we will be discussing:
- What is God’s grace and mercy?
- I feel helpless and alone
- Grace helps us through human suffering
- Is God’s grace for me?
- What is mercy?
- Do you want Justice Mercy or Grace?
- Some simple definitions of justice, mercy and grace
- What is Grace?
- How does God extend His grace and mercy?
- How to be saved
- Bible verse about grace
- Quotes about grace
- What is the definition of grace?
- How to find inner peace
- Assurance of salvation through God’s grace
- God loves you even when you mess up
- How to show God’s grace to others
- How to have a relationship with God
- How to have joy and purpose in your life
Grace helps us through human suffering
Even though we seem to be a frailty-denying culture with our youth and strength worth-syndrome, within the walls of these hospitals the truth is grossly apparent. Each one of us is frail and subject to the ravages of our frailty. No one escapes being touched, and often swamped by this fact. Although we may attempt to evade it through denial, or perhaps be in a period of relatively smooth sailing, the fact of human suffering relentlessly moves among us, plaguing us, hurting us.
We long for grace.
Is God’s grace for me?
In all things, give thanks, the Bible tells us. What is there to be thankful about? Is there a God if he would let this happen to me? Intellectually we accept the fact of a loving God, but in the gut-label of our feeling, there is resentment and doubt. But what is God’s grace and mercy?
From the maze and the haze of our ambivalence, there is a Biblical message about our Lord
for we do not have a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
Hebrews 4:14
Is it possible that God understands and is sympathetic with all my feelings at this turbulent season? Could he be touched by them?
Can it be that I can admit to myself and to him the depression and despair I may feel? Does he relate to the frustrations of all my human feelings?
Can I begin to struggle with risking my feelings to his grace? Can it be that I can begin to struggle with the Biblical teaching that I am O.K. as a person, even though the emotional pain is excruciating? Does his grace encompass my confusion and stress to make it right in his sight?
For we have a great high priest who has gone Into the very presence of God – Jesus, the Son of God. Our high priest is not one who cannot feel sympathy with our weaknesses. On the contrary, we have a high priest who was tempted in every way that we are but did not sin. Let us be brave, then, and come forward to God’s throne, where there is grace. There we will receive mercy and find grace to help us just when we need it.
Hebrews 4:14-16
God offers grace
What is mercy?
Mercy is God withholding the punishment we deserve because of our sinfulness. The consequences of our sin is death, yet Jesus paid this penalty for us and gives us opportunity to repent and receive His gift of salvation. But what is God’s grace and mercy?
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus.
(2 Corinthians 4:4)
The power of this life-giving verse hits home today. We were totally dead to God. If we are dead, we can’t save ourselves. We are dead. We can’t help ourselves.
We say “Have mercy” in flippant times as well as in the most devastating times of our lives. It is a plea for help. We do not ask for justice, we plead for mercy.
But then God (beautiful words) looks down and sees us, destitute and deserving death, and chooses mercifullyto bestow grace and raises us up to be seated with Christ.
Do you want Justice Mercy or Grace?
Some simple definitions of justice, mercy and grace
- Justice – when you get what you deserve.
- Mercy – when you don’t get what you deserve.
- Grace – When you get what you don’t deserve.
“Grace is the free, undeserved goodness and favor of God to mankind.” Matthew Henry
What is Grace?
Grace is Jesus Christ in redeeming action. Seeking and saving lost and condemned mankind. God’s grace is our only hope for this world and the next. It is God’s gift to us; it is Jesus paying the price for my sins on the cross; it is being raised from the dead even as Christ was raised.
How does God extend His grace and mercy?
God demonstrates His love toward us by saving us and giving us a place in heaven. That is grace. Free and undeserved.
God will accomplish his purposes, beginning with the salvation of individuals. We are indeed blessed by a merciful God and the grace that He offers us.
How to be saved
It was through grace that God sent his son, Jesus, to die on the cross and pay the price for our sins. It is by grace that we are saved through faith (and that not of ourselves but also a gift of grace) in His death and resurrection.
Quotes about grace
“Grace is a glorious commodity of heaven that can only be received and experienced in surrender to the will and love of our heavenly Father. Our world is unable to offer grace because it is in a constant state of need, and grace can only be offered from a place of true wholeness and love. In utter completeness, our God is able to offer us grace because he needs nothing from us in return. He requires nothing of us, so he offers us everything apart from any ability or inherent value we possess.” – Craig Denison
What is the definition of grace?
- Grace is the unearned gifts God pours out on His children.
- His grace provides salvation when we deserve destruction.
- His grace blesses us with the riches of heaven.
- His grace brings us peace in troublesome and worrisome situations.
- His grace brings us daily blessings.
- What God has provided through His grace is sufficient to save me because it is all what Jesus did and not what I did to earn it.
- Grace is God’s gift to all believers.
Grace would not be grace if it were a response to resources in us.
John Piper
Grace is free because God would not be the infinite, self-sufficient God He is if He were constrained byanything outside Himself.
John Piper
What is mercy and forgiveness?
Mercy is forgiving the sinner and withholding the punishment that is justly deserved. Grace is heaping undeserved blessings upon the sinner. In salvation, God does not show one without the other. In Christ, the believer experiences both mercy and grace. But what is God’s grace and mercy?
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus.
(2 Corinthians 4:4).
In His mercy He took the punishment for our sin, by His grace He extended it to undeserving us, and the blessings of His grace continue to flow through all eternity.
How to find inner peace
Because of God’s great mercy, God’s grace redeems us and gives us peace. Peace is the state of mind and heart we experience when we are confident of God’s grace and mercy toward us.
That assurance gives us peace. And it gives us joy – having a relationship with Jesus here on earth and looking forward to spending eternity with Him in heaven.
All because of Grace through faith in Him. And He graces us with the faith to believe. What a wonderful Savior.
Assurance of salvation through God’s grace
Through God’s grace, we can have the assurance of our salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. The Spirit of God lives within us and guides us and comforts us and assures us that we now belong to Christ because He has forgiven us.
God wants a daily walk with us. He wants to carry our load of worries. He wants to be our encouraging friend. He wants to give us all good things. He wants to make life richer and more rewarding.
Confess your sins to God and to one another
Every day as we confess our sins, He continually forgives us. The channel of a God-connection is kept clear when we confess our sins.
Confessed sins are gone forever.
We can know the love of God in our lives, the joy of His presence and the freedom from sin.
God wants us to live in calm assurance of His presence.
These are some of the verses that have given me the assurance of salvation through Jesus Christ
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who has promised is faithful.
Hebrews 10:23.
And He promises to be with us forever and ever
For as many as received Him (Jesus Christ), to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.John 1:12. (Yay!!!!!!!)
And if children, then heirs.”(Wow!)
God willed to make known the riches of the glory of this mystery……which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Colossians 2:27.
Grace, Grace, Grace – Amazing Grace!!! All the way – The Grace of God.
God loves you even when you mess up because of His grace and mercy
God forgives us our sin and promises to raise us from the dead and to provide for us an eternal home with Him. We need to just rest in those promises from the Almighty Creator God. But what is God’s grace and mercy?
Because of His great love for us, we are drawn to love Him more each day. We still live in a world full of sin and unbelief. We are still tempted by Satan to drift away from God, to be involved in less than noble endeavors; we are tempted to fall back into sin, to lie and cheat. We are weak. We are fearful. We cry out for help – and He is near and ready to help us, to forgive the sin, and to strengthen us.
How to show God’s grace and mercy to others
We have a desire to live a life reflecting Christ who lives in us.
We want others to know Jesus as Lord and Savior in their life.
We need Jesus to be in control – to “take the wheel.”
We still live in the flesh and fool ourselves into thinking we are ok. We need daily committal of our lives to Him. Without daily submission and walking with Him, we miss out on so many wonderful blessings that God wants us to have.
How to have a relationship with God through His grace and mercy
Daily time reading the Bible and praying – praying is just talking with Jesus – will give us the strength to say no to temptations that are present everywhere.
The following quote sums up how we can be deceived:
“People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord.
We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.” D. A. Carson
Putting Feet to Grace
Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” (John 20:21).
God’s mission is to the entire world. Salvation is for all who believe. The admonition to tell others the good news is for all believers.
How to have joy and purpose in your life
Living this life to its full and relying on what Christ Jesus has done for us, enriches our earthly life and gives us purpose for each day.
The abundant life that Jesus promised us is available when we walk in tandem with our Savior. Then each day we will recognize opportunities as well as blessings, thus enriching our lives and the lives of those we meet.
Have a grace-blessed day!
