God’s Grace in Our Ugly Mess

Certainly, we should be very active in seeking God, and Jesus himself called us to 'ask, seek, knock' in order to find him. Yet those who enter a relationship with God inevitably look back and recognise that God's grace had sought them out, breaking them open to new realities. Tim Keller

As followers of Jesus Christ, we often talk about the grace of God. We talk about how God’s grace carries us. How His grace helps us to endure hardships. How we’ve been saved by grace. This is all very true, but we sometimes speak so glibly about the grace of God that it loses its rich and deep meaning. When we take time to ponder our lives before we came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, we understand what an ugly mess our lives had been before His redeeming grace saved us. Then we can better appreciate the depths of His grace and love for us.

Several years ago, I was translating a guest speaker at our church. I remember him repeatedly saying: “God brought me out of darkness into His marvellous light.” He had good reason to say this because God had indeed brought him out of darkness into the marvellous light of His Son, Jesus Christ. You see, the man whose story I was translating had for many years been part of the sex exploitation industry in the Red-Light district in Amsterdam. When God revealed Himself to him, he realised that a good God had shown up in the ugly mess of a sinful man like him. God saw his ugly mess and stepped down to save him.  God chose Him, just as He chooses all of us as we heed His voice to follow Him. He chooses us because of His amazing grace, so that we can be His instruments to testify to others, in the messiness of their lives, what Jesus has done for us. We can testify, just as this man did, of how God called him out of darkness into His marvellous light.

1 Peter 2:9 says,

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.

God doesn’t just leave us in the ugly mess we sometimes make of our lives. His eternal love for us compels Him to come to our rescue and save us. This is exactly what He did when He sent His Son into the ugly mess of mankind on earth. This good God demonstrated His love for us when He sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross so that we would not die in the ugly mess but have life, a rich and satisfying life in Him. Perhaps the ugly mess of our lives has been caused by circumstances beyond our control. Perhaps it’s been caused by our own sin when we are led astray by the lies of Satan. Or by the sin of others when they fall into Satan’s trap, causing us harm. Satan does not have our best interests at heart. His primary agenda is to steal and destroy the abundant life that God has meant for us to live.

John 10:10 (NIV) says,

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

When we have this new life that God, in His unfathomable grace and eternal love, has given us, He calls us to be set apart for Him. We are no longer our own. We are to be Holy, sanctified in Him, so that our lives may glorify and honour Him.

I would like to challenge you to allow God into your ugly mess. When you do, He will lavish His grace and love on you, and give you that rich and satisfying life that can only be found in Him.

There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still. Corrie Ten Boom.

Reflection

Are there things in your life – the ugly mess that are preventing you from approaching God’s throne of grace? Hebrews 4:16 says that we should come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, You see the ugly mess in some areas of my life.  I invite You, Lord, into the ugly mess. I pray that You will lavish Your mercy and love on me so that I will be delivered and brought into Your glorious light. I thank You that the blood of Jesus sets me free from this. Thank You for giving me an abundant life in You. I pray that You use my life for Your glory. In Jesus’ name, amen.