Gracious
Intro
God is gracious and full of grace. God’s grace means God’s free gift of goodness toward those who only deserve to be punished. So God shows us love and kindness when we don’t deserve it.
We tend to do things our own way instead of God’s way or just ignore God and put ourselves first, that’s called sin and we deserve to be punished for that; but because of God’s grace for us, when Jesus died on the cross he was punished instead of us so we could be forgiven for the wrong things we do and we can be God’s friends.
Amazing Fact
There is nothing good you can do to make God love you more! And nothing bad you do could ever make God love you less! He loves you as much as he possibly can all the time, just as you are! (Try reading that over and over again using ‘I’ and ‘me’ instead of ‘you’ to make sure you’ve grasped it!)
Cross Challenge
On a piece of A4 paper, draw an outline of a big cross, as tall and wide as the paper. Write inside the cross all the things you can think of that you have done wrong and have asked God to forgive you for or anything you want him to ask you to forgive you for right now. Then, in big writing, all the way from the bottom left hand corner to the top right hand corner, write the word ‘GRACE’ over the top of those sins because God has forgiven you by his grace.
Story
A couple of years ago Dave Godfrey told this story about when he damaged his car. He took it into the garage to get it repaired and then received 2 letters in the post. The first was a bill from the garage – it was going to cost a lot to repair. The second was a letter from his Dad who had heard about the accident and he had sent a cheque for enough money to pay for the repair and also for Dave to buy a new car!
Dave hadn’t done anything to deserve his Dad’s love and kindness, it was just that his Dad wanted the best for him because Dave is his son and he loves him.
That’s just like how our Father God is with us – we don’t deserve God’s goodness and there is nothing we can do to earn it; he is good to us because we are his children and he loves us. That’s God’s free gift of grace!
Creative Prayer
Can you make a list on a piece of paper of all the ways God has been good to you? See how many you get up to in 3 minutes.
Now thank God for his goodness to you!
Grace Prayers
Some people say a prayer called ‘grace’ before a meal. This is a prayer of thankfulness to God for his goodness to us.
In some churches we say the ‘grace’ at the end of a service. This is used to bless each other.
Paul uses a blessing like this in 2Thess 3:18 and I’d like to bless you as you read it. ‘May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.’