To Encourage You

Exodus 16:6-7 “At evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against the Lord.”

Grace: the unmerited favor of God.  What an amazing gift of God that demonstrates his awesome and glorious nature.  In the verses above, we see a glimpse of this as Israel murmured against God because of their hunger in the desert.  His gracious response to their sinful and faithless complaint was to give them manna.  And this gift was given not just for one day, but day after day, as much as each person needed, for a period of 40 years.  Throughout that period, they continued to complain, sin, and doubt the sufficiency of God, and yet He continued to meet their needs each and every day.  The continual, unmerited, and all sufficient favor of God poured out on sinful, unthankful, and rebellious men and women; why does He do it?  Because it’s just the way He is. 

Think about how many people in this world eat their fill of food every day and never give thanks to the God who provided it to them. Yet, He continues to provide for them, day after day.  Think about how many people have been given the marvelous gifts of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch (for many people lack at least some of these gifts) so that they can experience the miracle of God’s creation, yet who give no thought to the Creator, or even worse, refuse to believe that He even exists. 

But what about people who say they believe, who say that they know this great God, but who then so easily fear and worry when things don’t go quite how they think they should, doubting the sufficiency of their all-sufficient Savior. Indeed, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things (Romans 8:32)?  And graciously given to those who don’t deserve grace, as we so easily forget, doubt, or fail to believe His promise that He will supply all our needs (Philippians 4:19).  All means all, i.e., an all-sufficient amount, at all times, for each and every one of us.  And it’s all IN SPITE of us, not BECAUSE of us.

Surely “from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace (John 1:16),” or as one Bible version says it “one blessing after another” – and each and every one of these blessings come to us by grace.  How our hearts should overflow with gratitude and love for the One who not only saved us by His grace as a free and totally unmerited gift (Ephesians 2:8-9), but Who then continues to pour out his blessings continually upon us day after day, when in truth, we don’t really deserve even one.