Heaps of Grace, Relentless Kindness

Dear Church,

But God...raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:6-7

He keeps you. You are His. Pride has been defeated. Our enemy has been disarmed.

He put Himself under His own wrath in Jesus Christ, though you were the ones to provoke it. He preferred to experience avenging His own punishment (and therefore agony) on Himself, so that you would not be caught in its crossfires. He is the only one able to endure His own wrath. You surely would have perished.

And yet He still got what He wanted -- intimate relationship with you. The very things He formed you for are the very things He restored you to in Christ Jesus. It is exactly what He wanted.

He has made you objects of His kindness, thought for a short while He was the object of His own anger. And He tells you that your slate is clean, that the gift is free, that the joy is yours for the taking. He tells you that everything is paid for, that the punishment has been carried out, that you will never have to apologize to Him again.

He tells you that you are free from the very thing that caused His wrath to be aroused.

This is too good. This is grace. He never didn't want you.

Selah.

For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and Renewing by the Holy Spirit, Whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Titus 3:3-7