Captured by Grace Devotionals Day 11

Amazing Mercy and Grace

 

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices.

Romans 12:1

 

 

A young Englishman wanted to be a seafaring man like his father, but the British Royal Navy would not have him. He ended up in West Africa working for a slave trader, a “wretched man,” as one writer called him, begging for food to stay alive. Escaping Africa, he was washed overboard in a storm and nearly drowned at sea. After being rescued, the words of Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ came to him and he cried out to God for salvation. Years later, John Newton wrote a hymn in praise of the “amazing grace” that saved a wretch like him.

 

Not all of us have experienced the depths of wretchedness John Newton did before being saved. Or King Nebuchadnezzar, for that matter. He lost his dignity and sanity—and thankfully, his pride—before coming to his senses (Daniel 4:33-37). Whether we come from a background of wickedness or willfulness, our sin merits the same response in God’s sight: condemnation. It is only God’s amazing mercy and grace which can save us from ourselves.

 

Recipients of God’s grace are easy to spot—they’re the ones with the grateful look on their faces and words of thanks on their lips.

 

Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines him to bestow benefits upon the undeserving.

A. W. Tozer

 

Recommended Reading: Ephesians 1:3-14