“Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore
he exalts himself to show mercy to you.”
Graciousness is forgiveness of sin and mercy is lifting you out of
misery caused by sin, either your sin or sin against you. He has self-disclosed that He is merciful and
gracious but we have to turn to Him to receive those things from Him. Grace and mercy are for repentant
petitioners, not generically given. In
giving mercy to ones such as us He is exalted, His greatness is in His condescension
and love towards us, not aloofness. He
waits to be gracious and what does Isaiah say He is waiting on, “He will surely
be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers
you.” If you knew that someone you have
wronged was simply waiting for you to come to them in order to be gracious, not
only forgiving but passionately desiring reconciliation and restoration of
relationship wouldn’t you be quick to acknowledge your sin against them? That is the Lord’s attitude towards us. All we have to do is run to His arms and say,
“I was wrong, I am sorry.” What are you
waiting on?
Keeping the commandments is a sign that we love Jesus. He seems to imply a chain of causation here
at the beginning of the reading. If you
love, then you will keep the commandments and I will ask for the Helper. Loving Him begets a desire to obey Him and
therefore please Him and when we do He prays for us for the Holy Spirit. If we walk in obedience to what we know there
will be more made known to us and walking in that obedience means we will have
greater intimacy with Him. It begins with
love, ensues in obedience and results in union. Justification is step one, we
accept Christ’s sacrifice and exchange our sin for His righteousness which causes
us to love the one who died for us. We
are then pleasing so we obey not to gain acceptance but because we are accepted
and we want to please him. We work from
love, not to gain it. Works never save
us, never cause Him to love us more, but they do make us fit for more of Him. Grace was God’s motive for sending His Son,
mercy His response to our obedience.
Peter is trying to make sense of what the people have come
to see, this great sound of rushing wind and the people speaking in
tongues. He sees that this, what they
are seeing and hearing, is none other than the promised Holy Spirit. None of them had ever seen this or
experienced such things until this hour and, oh my, what in the world does it
mean. Will this always be how things are
or is it all getting ready to come to the grand conclusion? There was only one question on their lips. If all you say about Jesus is true, what do
we do? The answer is simple, repent and
be baptized in the name of Jesus and you will receive this same Spirit. The part from verse 42 to the end is what you
do after you’re baptized. Work it out,
study, love and community. Once you’ve
received grace and mercy you should be obsessed with knowing more, doing more
and receiving more.
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