Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Grace”
Our Bible verse for today: “For He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” Matthew 5:45 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “Everyone gets to experience God’s common grace.”
Yesterday we defined grace as “Undeserved blessings freely bestowed upon people by God.” But in His divine wisdom God created varying degrees of grace, and how much of His grace any individual gets to experience depends on that individual’s relationship with God.
Basically there are two broad categories of God’s grace, “common grace” and “special grace”. Then within the broad category of “special” grace, there are four sub-categories. Today we will think about common grace. In the days to come we will explore special grace.
Common grace is so called because it is common to all mankind. Everyone gets it whether they seek it or not, and whether they want it or not. In Matthew 5:45 Jesus gave us two examples of God’s common grace – sunshine and rain. Everybody gets to experience the blessing of sunshine and everyone gets some rain. Good people and evil people, the righteous and the unrighteous, everyone gets sunshine and rain as a result of God’s blessing upon the human race in general.
We see another example of common grace in the way in which God created human governments to impose order on societies. Common grace is also expressed in the inborn understanding that all human beings have between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, and the awareness that we are accountable to each other. These are essential elements of living in any community and they are common throughout the human race.
Jesus is an expression of both common and special grace. With respect to common grace, God sent Jesus to the whole world. While it’s true that not everyone accepts Him, it’s still true that Jesus was sent into the world and for the world. The world and everyone in it has been blessed in some manner because Jesus came. This world is a better place because Jesus came.
God’s common grace demonstrates His continuing care for all of His creation. It’s a very good thing and we should thank Him for it. But “special” grace is the grace you really want. We will spend the next several days exploring what it is, what it does, and how you get it.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 