Sin and Grace

All my life I have heard grace explained as 'God's riches at Christ expense'. But, I'm sorry, what the heck does that mean.  It's a cute allegory of GRACE but I don't think it explains what grace is very well. I thought I had an understanding when I heard a preacher explain grace. He said that when we sin, we fall down, we fall short of God's standards. But then Christ comes along and picks us up, brushes of the "dirt", and tells us 'Ok, now, no more of that. Continue doing my will.'"  I like that. But lately God had been giving me a knew understanding of grace.  

Sin is ugly. I, personally, don't like thinking about it, so often I don't. But today I am.  I love my Jehovah God. He is good and holy and righteous - aka perfect. I - am not.  Being human I fall short of his standards.  I just can't meet them.  But it is a goal to continue to reach for. In the mean time, God can't look on my sin. In a nut shell- He hates sin, but he loves me to much to leave me hanging.  In the old testament, people would have to kill  and sacrifice animals to cover their sin and God would pardon them. But that way had it's problems, God people saw it as a tradition, a have-to, practice to make God happy. They would bring their sacrifice and nothing would change inside of them.  So.... God had a better plan for man to atone of sin. His son, Jesus, would sacrifice himself.  Now, all people needed to do was repent, no more bundle-some animal to carry around.

Now, think about this, Jesus said I am the vine and we are his branches. He plucks off the branches that aren't doing anything for him; and he fine tunes those that are loving him believing him, trying to succeed so they will love him more,believe him more, and succeed at trying. 

Here is what he has been showing me.  Grace covers the pruning time. Many think they are doing OK.  They go to church, tithe, pray, do good for others, but God says we can do better. Because we didn't know we could do better, HIS GRACE was covering us then. Now he is pruning us, so we can believe greater, pray greater, love greater, but it is still not going to be as great as HE, so until that day, His grace will be sufficient. 

Christ blood holds alot DNA for our SIN.  His blood covers much!  Thank you, Lord, for your grace.