Grace and peace to you from God our Father. Colossians1:2
Paul starts all of his letters with a wish that his readers will experience Grace and Peace. Sometimes he adds "mercy" to the blessing and in just about all the others he includes the Lord Jesus in the "from" section.*
Let's talk about Grace and Peace.
Grace is to receive unmerited favour. To experience grace is to discover that God's goodness is coming our way even though we have done nothing to deserve it. Grace is to be pardoned and acquitted when the case against us was watertight. To experience grace is to be given all of God's kindness when we deserved the opposite.
This acronymn says it all:
G od's
R iches
A t
C hrist's
E xpense
Peace is the sense of well-being, safety and comfort that springs from experiencing Grace. It is the comfort of knowing that our debts are cancelled. Peace takes its cue from Jesus' mighty shout "It is finished." (The Greek "Tetelestai" implies - "the debt is paid")
Why does Paul start all his letters with this prayer/blessing/wish?
Because we should never forget that we have received GRACE and when we build our foundation on GRACE, we will have PEACE.
This is our lifestyle as children of God the Father.
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(It may well be that Paul leaves out the Lord Jesus, because of the strong emphasis on Jesus' identity later in chapter 1. (But more about that in devs to follow...))
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Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
