The Agony of Grace.
Good Morning Friends,
On this Memorial Day we meditate on the reality that God’s grace has found us because another has died. Today we face the reality that we must live in the achievement of another. We must embrace God’s favor at another’s expense.
We must abandon our past and embrace what God offers. Today we discover who we were born to be even in The Agony of Grace.
Scripture: When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose. Then the Lord said, “My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown. The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord.
Genesis 6: 1-8 (NRSV)
David asked, “Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul to whom I may show kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” Now there was a servant of the house of Saul whose name was Ziba, and he was summoned to David. The king said to him, “Are you Ziba?” And he said, “At your service!” The king said, “Is there anyone remaining of the house of Saul to whom I may show the kindness of God?” Ziba said to the king, “There remains a son of Jonathan; he is crippled in his feet.”
2 Samuel 9:1-3 (NRSV)
(From the story of David and Bathsheba after David had Uriah killed.) When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son.
2 Samuel 11:26-27 (NRSV)
Message: Grace is not difficult to understand. It is difficult to receive. It was difficult for those seeing Noah build the Ark. It was difficult for Noah and his family to see the world around them destroyed. It was crippling for
Mephibosheth who lived in the paid price of his father’s grace. It was difficult for David facing his sin and maybe even for Bathsheba in the lament for her husband and the opportunity his death made possible. But today as we grieve for those who interceded for us at the cost of their lives thoughout holy history, it is for me a bit agonizing. Both my mind and heart are pained. Even as I remember the stories of those who have died to make my life better, I am confronted with the shame of it… the reality of the brokenness we have in our continual rebellion against God. Then I think about Jesus at Gethsemane and the grace and hope and pain in our own weakness.
Pray we find the strength to continue in the power of the Holy Spirit. Pray that we all realize, even as we long for a Pentecost in our lives and church, that there is no Pentecost without the Cross. Pray that when we experience the brokenness of our world that we repent of our pride. Pray we become as prayer warriors interceding in the pain of others. Pray we realize that this is not about being inspired but being transformed through prayers that bleed in the blood of Christ. Pray we know the love of Christ even as we remember the saints who have died for Christ’s cause.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 