Grace

Photo Credit: Oliver Schweizer, unsplash.com

Grace.

There are lots of books and talk out there about grace these days, and I was taught the standard “unmerited favour” definition, which is fine, but looking into the Hebrew gives a wealth of insight not found elsewhere. You likely won’t find this in many books….

Trudging through an endless barren desert, roasting, exhausted, famished and dehydrated, running and hiding from roving gangs of thieves and personal enemies, bleeding from brutal treatment, and lugging a heavy load, your heart sinks after chasing yet another mirage. Suddenly, a most wonderful beautiful sight meets your eyes. Like a precious gem gleaming in the sand, you see a large circle of tents, just ahead. But as you get closer, you see that the tents are planted adjacent to each other like a formidable wall separating the inside from the outside, and are well guarded. Walking around the camp, you find an entrance, but again well-guarded, and you almost can’t look at the spectacle just outside the gate. Still, survival skills taking over and daring to hope, you approach the gate, dragging, half-crawling your weary body those last few steps.

The gatekeeper eyes you as you inquire about this camp, and you are told that it is the camp of the Mighty Patriarch and His family. Then, to your surprise, He carries you into the camp. He sets you down gently, offers you water, food, a place to rest, and guarantees safety from the enemies that have been pursuing you. Your heavy load is removed. All your needs are provided. You are washed, dressed, tended to, given a tent to rest in, and finally, you are brought before the Mighty Patriarch. He welcomes you, honours you, guarantees your safety and provision, and fully accepts you into His family. All that He has is now also yours. Grants you to walk about in freedom and authority as one of His own. He gives you great and precious gifts, loves you, empowers you to represent Him wherever you go. He fights for you against your enemies, using the very spears that the tents are pitched upon to defend you. Overwhelmed, you ask how all of this can be. The Patriarch smiles, and points to the spectacle outside the gate. My Son….My Son took your place. And He has overcome.

The word grace in Hebrew is chen, made of 2 letters, chet and nun. Because Hebrew is concrete and pictographic, the letters have meaning. The chet means a wall of tents, or camp, where the wall separates inside from outside, and the nun means living seed that continues, so chen means a continuous walled encampment. The place where tents are pitched. This may not seem to relate, until you understand desert culture, and my little story above illustrates this. Grace, then, is being invited, welcomed, accepted into the Father’s camp, on the basis of Jesus’ sacrifice which took place outside the camp. And once in that camp, you have all the resources of the Father available to you. Grace is a "camp of protection," a graceful and precious place."

In light of that, thoughtfully consider these verses….

Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Mt. 6:33

My grace is sufficient for you. 2 Cor. 12:9a

Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast. Psalm 57:1

I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. Ro. 9:25

Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Ro. 5:1-2

Not until we have personally freely received this grace, can we freely extend the grace of God to others from the Father's camp...the grace of sharing provision, offering forgiveness, giving mercy, walking in authority, ministering redemption.

Have you received the grace of the Father? Have you carried His grace to others?