“Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
~Ephesians 1:2
Grace & Peace are two simple little words that we often move past quickly, thinking we ‘know’ what they mean. As we ponder these words today, let's remember that these are ‘experiential’ words; meaning that they can only be ‘known’ when experienced, and they can only be experienced when they come by and through us experiencing the Trinity.
We, like our Ephesian sisters and brothers, live in a world of distractions. Our eyes wander and our thoughts get pulled in many directions--some good, some bad--which is consequential-reality of our contribution in the fall which happened in the Garden of Eden. The first humans were basking in the beauty of grace and peace as they walked the garden pathways with God in blessed communion.
And then the fall...
Shame and the corruption of death became the new normal. Shalom was shattered, but its pieces still remained, waiting for repair and for wholeness to come from on high. And that Great Repairer came in the flesh--God incarnate, in the person of Jesus--to restore shalom and to repair us from our shattered-ness.
Paul is reminding us all that grace and peace come through the Trinity, and that the Trinity beckons us back into a relationship that resembles the communion that existed before the fall spoken of in Genesis. As we follow Christ, we become transformed beings who sing in tune with the harmony of grace and peace.
Do others experience grace and peace when they encounter you? Do they hear the song in your heart of you singing with the Holy Spirit all of God's goodness and blessing?
This week…
- Look up the words grace and peace in the dictionary. Now, in relation to your experience with God, rewrite the definition in your own words.
- Think of a time when you were the recipient of grace and peace from someone in your life… Who was it, and what were the circumstances? Did you deserve to receive these gifts? If you feel that you did deserve to, what makes the 'grace' of this moment stand out to you?
- Who is someone you know that would benefit from receiving grace and peace from you this week? (It doesn't need to be someone who deserves it!). In what ways could you bless someone with grace and peace?
- Now, before you get too far ahead of yourself, contemplate the relationship between the Identity of God—like last week's exercises of contemplating your own identity—and God's bestowment of grace and peace to you and to others. Do you see that what God does comes out from whom God is, and not the other way around?
- Remind yourself from the previous week's exercises of your identity in Christ; who I am determines what I do.
- Pray that God will continue to remove the barriers to you growing in your identity as you receive the strength from Him to let the things go from your own grasp that prevent you from this growth.
