Grace and Power

As we learned from Luke 1 this week, Zechariah's story exposes our doubting hearts and Mary's story reveals the grace and power of God. That means, the way out of our doubts and disbelief and disobedience is to center our lives on God's grace and submit ourselves to his power. You see, faith is demonstrated when we obey without all the information. That means we learn to say along with Mary, "I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38). Somehow, despite hearing the most spectacularly wild announcement in the history of the world ... she was down. She was willing and ready.

This is such good news!

This means our life is a story whose resolution is not dependent upon us, but establish and sustained and secured by God himself through his grace and power. In a word, it's all about Jesus. It's what we've been learning in Romans. Specifically Romans 1:16 tells us, the gospel ... is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. The gospel is that he is a God who draws near to us in our doubts and fears. He is the God who calls us into his purposes, not because we are significant in any worldly sense but because we are his in the truest sense.

He does this by his grace and power.

Grace is God's unmerited favor, eternally demonstrated on the cross. If you are doubting his grace and love ... look to the cross. It's there we see that God is not waiting for you to muster up enough faith to impress him. Instead, the cross is where he demonstrated his love for us while we were doubters, haters, and still dead in our sin.

Power is God's ability, desire, and opportunity to do as he sees fit, as he pleases. If you are doubting his power ... look to the resurrection. It is there we see that Satan, sin, death, and all the powers of this dark and evil age are no match for the God for whom nothing is impossible.