GARMENTS OF GRACE

Ephesians 4:32
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another,
even as God in Christ forgave you.

In Running on Empty, Jill Briscoe writes about a friend who had been molested by her father as a child. She grew up, met the Lord, and recovered from her childhood wounds. When her father eventually found the Lord and asked his daughter for forgiveness, she was angry that he had been welcomed into God’s grace—until she had a dream in which she saw both herself and her father clothed in the same white robes of righteousness.

There is only one garment of grace, and it covers every sinner the same way: completely. When Christ died, it was for all to the same degree. There is not one garment of grace that is richer and finer for the most deserving, and one that is skimpy and thin for the least deserving. The garment of God’s grace, provided by the death of Christ on the cross, covers every sinner the same way: from top to bottom, from eternity past to eternity future. When we stand clothed in grace and find it difficult to forgive another who is also clothed in grace, we have misunderstood the nature of Christ’s sacrifice and God’s gift.

Grace not only forgives; it also provides the power to forgive in the way we have been forgiven.

David Jeremiah, Turning Points with God: 365 Daily Devotions (Tyndale, 2014)
Scripture for opening text taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.