The grace laid upon this table is weighty. Upon this table are genuine tokens that the blazing wrath of God’s hatred for your sin has been absorbed by another. The staggering truth presented to us here is that God knows all the wicked things you’ve said, and thought, and done and invites you here anyway. Grace isn’t the wispy pandering we find all around us. Grace isn’t good marketing. Grace isn’t coddling.
Grace is the blazing favor of God the Father upon you, as you rest in the righteousness of His Son, assured by the Spirit that God’s joy over you is genuine. We sometimes want to rush in and put parameters on the favor. It seems too good to be true. But the grace which is shown to us through Christ is unimaginably better truth.
God forgives all your sins through Christ. God reckons you righteous. God gives you His Spirit to prick your conscience when you violate His law, and His same Spirit grants you grace to step on the neck of any dragon which besets you.
Have you sinned? Of course you have. God’s grace invites you to come to Christ. Have you whiffed hard on being righteous? Of course you have. God’s favor rests upon you through Christ. Have you grieved over how little you’ve grown in holiness? The Spirit comforts you to cry out to your Father for grace upon grace. And on this table rests the evidence that God will make good on His promise to redeem his people, wipe away their shame, and bring them into the bountiful joys of His presence.
Bonhoeffer was right when he observed that grace isn’t cheap. It’s free, not cheap. Here is grace, the sort that is represented by a broken & bloody body of the only righteous man to ever live.
So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…
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