My soul is gripped by the majestic grandeur of God's fathomless grace. (Romans 5:15/Amplified) - God's free gift is not at all to be compared to the trespass. His grace is out of all proportion to the fall of man.
My mind strains to go back, away back, back before the dinosaurs, back ... back ... back before there was even matter. That was when God called us by name and declared that He chose us to be His very own.
Why? And especially, why me?
We could never deserve or hope to earn His grace while alive on Planet Earth but He chose us eons before we existed. I look up at the night sky and the stars speak silently to me, clearly revealing wonders of the Creator. But before there were stars, we were already chosen in Christ. Chosen for the high privilege of being created in God's image in order that we would demonstrate what God is like. Chosen to be redeemed ages before sin made redemption necessary. I look over the Scripture verse again and I'm staggered at the immensity of God's plan. I could never begin to grasp it fully -- but just to think of prehistoric times, outer space, Jesus the King of the nations -- and to know that I'm included in the Plan, a Plan executed by Sovereign Power which nothing can thwart.
Contemplation of the majesty, the mercy, the mystery, leads me to another startling truth, a truth which makes me tremble. Because He set His love upon us, God has voluntarily bound up His happiness with ours. His triumphant joy and ours will not be fully complete until He presents us faultless before the Presence of His glory (Jude 24). But in "the little while between" our fellowship with Him deepens in the mutual exchange of love and our mutual joy increases.
Truly, truly, God's grace is very personal and out of all proportion.
With love & prayers,