Sometimes Christians have the mistaken impression that grace began at the cross. Not so! Jesus was the ultimate form of God’s grace and the fulfillment of many generations of planning and patience by God, but God’s character of mercy has been present all along.

But if a wicked person turns away from all the sins they have committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, that person will surely live; they will not die.

Ezekiel 18:21

How blessed is he whose wrongdoing is forgiven,

Whose sin is covered!

How blessed is a person whose guilt the Lord does not take into account,

And in whose spirit there is no deceit!

PSalm 32:1-2

If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send a plague among My people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

1 Chronicles 7:13-14

At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot it, to tear it down, or to destroy it; if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I planned to bring on it. Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it; if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will relent of the good with which I said that I would bless it.

Jeremiah 18:7-10

Glory to our merciful God, abounding in grace and steadfast in all his ways.

Ethan Kirl