“Charles Swindoll tells of a friend who wanted to purchase a gem for his wife. He visited a jeweler who knew just how to display his merchandise. He stopped under a bright light, slid a piece of black velvet onto the glass counter, took the gems from the case and laid them one by one on the velvet. Without that black backdrop, he couldn’t have seen the cut, the hues, or the beauty of each gem. “I learned something from his search for that jewel: we cannot appreciate the beauty and the luster and the brilliance of the gospel of Christ, with all of its hope and grace, if we’ve never seen the backdrop of sin as it really is” (Insights, Spring-Summer 1986).
The brilliance of God’s grace is most clearly seen against the backdrop of the depths of sin from which it can free us. This is emphasized by Paul in his letter to Ephesus. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and 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 2:4-7). The apostle contrasts being dead in our transgressions with the abundant riches of God’s grace.
Perhaps Paul can speak clearly on this topic because he had experienced it in his own life. “For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me” (1 Corinthians 15:9-10).
“May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure” (1 Peter 1:2).
God loves you!
Mike
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