Grace

This morning, I woke up to a fresh coat of snow. Outside, it covers up the dormant grass, hides the bare patches on the lawn, and even covers up the doggie doo-doo that somebody's pooch left yesterday. Fresh snow, to me, is one of the most glorious sights on the planet, because it looks like God's mercy and grace.

Snow is a picture of God's mercy, which hides our imperfections, weaknesses and outright stubbornness and rebellion against God. When God our Father looks at us, he doesn't see our sins anymore, just like I don't see the doggie pile under that snow. He sees the perfection of his only Son instead: "Yes, Adam's one sin brought condemnation upon everyone, but Christ's one act of righteousness makes all people right in God's sight and gives them life." (Romans 5:18, New Living Translation)

The snow analogy is imperfect, because in Arvada the snow will melt and all the stuff underneath will become visible again. But once you're covered by Christ's righteousness, all your 'stuff' is gone and only his righteousness remains. That's the 'mercy' part -- total forgiveness of all sin.

The 'grace' part is that it's given to us in spite of everything we've done; we sure don't deserve it, and there's nothing we could possibly do to earn it, not even with good intentions, careful obedience and zeal. It's a gift, pure and simple.

Really?

Yes, really. The gift is already prepared for you. You enter into that reality by simply beginning to believe it and saying "yes, and thank you!" to God. That's it.

That's it?

Yep. Are you ready to leave your past behind and walk into that new, fresh snow?