Rush into the Arms of Grace
By Dawn Tolbert
“Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore He will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for Him!” Isaiah 30:18
I make mistakes in my spiritual journey. And, to be perfectly honest, sometimes they aren’t mistakes; they are choices—ones I know are wrong but make anyway. They are sins.
In these moments, I feel the accusations:
“How can you expect God to love you when you still do things like this?”
“Did you think He could use someone like you?”
Have you felt that way? If so, let me tell you an amazing truth that gives us hope: While we don’t deserve grace or restoration, God still wants to restore us. He loves us in spite of our mistakes, bad choices, and sinfulness. He invites us into a renewed relationship with Him.
Isaiah, the author of today’s verse, captured this truth beautifully. While warning about the people’s willful disobedience, he wrote, “Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you.”
Some translations say the Lord “waits” so He can be gracious to us. Think about that—the Lord God, the Creator of All Things, waiting. Why would He wait for us? Because of His great love for us!
He offers us the chance to repent—to confess our wrongdoing and to turn from it. God’s love for us is so great that He, the God of justice, made the way for our penalty to be paid. He gave His own Son, John 3:16 tells us, so that we can have eternal life.
We should rush into the arms of the One who loves us. He is waiting to welcome us with grace and compassion when we willingly confess our sins. He wants to forgive us.
Dawn Tolbert is a contributor to Wholly Loved MinistriesDaily Devotional, a Christ-follower who writes to honor God, thank Him for His goodness, and encourage readers by sharing her faith journey. She works in higher education public relations and is writing her first novel and her first book-length Bible study. She has earned a B.A. in Communication Studies and English (Gardner-Webb College), a M.A. in Professional Writing (Kennesaw State University), and an Ed.D. in Higher Education Leadership (Union University). She and her husband, Larry, live in Cedartown, Georgia, and serve actively in their church. Dawn blogs at dawntolbert.com.
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Originally published Tuesday, 05 September 2023.
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