Dear Church family – God’s Grace is sufficient …

How are the preparations going? The preparations to celebrate the gracious visit of God the Son? He has visited so that all who follow him may be ready for His glorious coming, whenever that is. And it may be on the 25 Dec this year.

Grace is now freely available to all who come to God’s Son, Jesus Christ the Messiah.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 8:9)

This grace is wonderfully illustrated by the four women mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba (Mtt 1:3-6). All of them were outsiders, ‘Gentiles.’ None of them were paragons of conventional virtue. Tamar was in an incestuous relationship (Gen 38); Rahab was a prostitute in Jerico (Joshua 2); Ruth was a Moabitess, a people hostile to God’s people; and Bathsheba was in an adulterous relationship with David (2 Samuel 11).

Matthew includes these 4 ladies to show us that if people like these are in Jesus’ genealogy, then everyone is welcome in God’s family, because God lavishes His love on those who don’t deserve it – sexual failures, marital failures, financial failures, whatever we may be thinking of now that condemns us or disqualifies us as not worthy, are no obstacle to God’s grace.

God is interested in the most unlovely, unworthy, undeserving people. Our God knows how messy our lives are; that’s what he came to deal with – the message of Matthew right from the start is no matter what mess our lives are in, there is more grace in Christ Jesus the son of Abraham, than there is sin in us. He has come to bring us into the presence of God. He has come that we might live in the presence of God. That we might receive the blessing God promised to Abraham – the greatest blessing. The blessing of Knowing God and making him known.

God’s sufficient grace is wonderful news to celebrate and share this Christmas, isn’t it? Do read on to find out how we might do this.

Your brother in Christ,

Ian