I was reading this morning and was reminded of a very important truth. Many right now are depicting God’s Grace solely on the first act, but the Bible is quite clear about it: there’s going to be a second.
Paul was preaching his guts out to a bunch of Greeks who didn’t really care much of what he had to say. (I picture him really getting into it: he’s probably spitting like Tony Campolo.) At the climax of his message he says this:
“For he has set a day for judging the world with justice by the man he has appointed, and he proved to everyone who this is by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:31 NLT)
Justice is the second act of the grace-story.
In fact, you really can’t have grace without it.
Think about it. If my kids were misbehaving, and I gave them a pass you might call it grace. If I gave them a pass each and every time they misbehaved, you would call it bad parenting. Plain and simple.
But God is not a bad parent.
His grace covers all sin. His justice makes all things right. There is a second act to the story and it is this: Jesus is coming back and he is not coming back as “8 pound—6 ounce...new born infant Jesus, who doesn’t even know a word yet”! Nope, he is coming as the “rider on a white horse…a conqueror bent on conquest” (Rev. 6:2). The second-act Jesus is the same as the first-act Jesus with one exception—his mission. The first time he came to rescue and the second time he comes to restore. The first time is to seek and save the lost, the second is to separate the sheep from the goats. The first time he comes as the Lamb of God, the second time he is the Lion of Judah.
So when you think about the grace of God, particularly through his son Jesus, realize that love does win, but in more ways than one.
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