Dear church,

The grace of God is most evident if we look honestly at our own lives. That is, we must look at our lives the way God looks at them. And God is always honest. 

“They are a people who go astray in their heart” (Psalm 95:10). God could say this about us as easily as he said it about the Israelites at the edge of the Promised Land, as they hatched a plan to return to Egypt. 

So we see the grace of God – because he is a God who sees us as we truly are. We go astray. It is our natural tendency. Our lives lean in that direction. 

And yet, God waits on us, and this is grace. 

We may indeed miss a rich part of his blessing, a life on this earth in peace with God and others and ourselves. The faithless spies and “wicked congregation” indeed did find their graves in the wilderness, on the way back to Egypt, just like they unwisely had hoped.

And yet, God waits for us to come around. He is “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression.” Christ died for us, after all, while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8).

To appreciate the grace of God, we first must attend to our own lives, to see them as God does. A people who go astray can always stop and turn around. As long as it is “today,” the possibility remains (Hebrews 3:7-4:13).

Chris