grace down on one knee

[4 minutes]

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:4-7

I’d like to share something with you I heard this morning:

“Grace simply means that God moves toward us in love.”

It’s beautiful in its simplicity, isn’t it? Grace isn’t something we “catch” if we happen to be in the right place at the right time. Grace is God moving toward us — focused on us — His hands and heart brimming with love.

I will never forget a pastor’s conference I attended years ago where I was enthralled by one of the speakers — Joe Stowell, former president of Moody Bible College. As I waited in line to greet him and tell him what his sermon had meant to me that morning, people kept pressing in around me and standing over me. I was invisible, certain he couldn’t see me through the crowd. But then he bypassed everyone, came straight to my wheelchair, and went down on one knee to look me directly in the eye. He introduced himself and asked me about myself — and everything in his face and manner told me he meant it. He was entirely present. As far as either of us knew, there was nobody else in the room.

This is how God’s grace operates. He is always the initiator, finding us where we are, and He lowers himself so as to be reachable. Just as Jesus crossed the distance between Himself and a man who had been paralyzed for 38 years (John 5:5) — once God gets us in His sight, we can’t escape. We are His. And we want to be His.

Paul tells us in Ephesians 2 even though we were spiritually dead God already loved us. Against all odds, with everything stacked against us, God moved in and let us know we were His kind of people. He didn’t decide to love us only after we said yes to Jesus; He had already been moving toward us, setting His sights on us long before we turned toward Him. So how can we think that on our worst days — when we don’t feel our best, when we’ve blown it badly — God has stopped loving us? Impossible. Even at our most broken, on our darkest day, God was already moving in our direction, getting down on one knee, looking us straight in the eye, giving us His full attention — choosing us, singling us out, setting His affection upon us. His mercies never end; they are new every morning! (Lam 3:22, 23)

He sees us even when we feel invisible to Him.

Hagar knew a little something about invisibility and zero agency. Forced to run away, Abram and Sarai’s handmaid-turned-concubine escaped to the wilderness, driven there by Sarai’s jealousy and abuse (Gen 16:6). Alone and desperate, the Angel of the Lord (the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus) found Hagar in that desolate place and ministered His loving grace to her. Overwhelmed by the Almighty seeing her, Hagar gave the Lord a name no one had ever called Him before: El-roi. The God who sees (Gen. 16:13).

Thirty years have passed since that pastor’s conference, but I still remember when the man of God got down on his knee and engaged me. He saw me — picked me out of the crowd — and said, “What’s your name?”

I’m coming out of a season of great bodily sickness and one of the things I’ve been occupying my time with is memorizing scripture. One passage I’ve committed to memory is from Job 37:22–23: “Out of the north he comes, shrouded in a golden glow, awesome majesty surrounds him. The Almighty — we cannot reach him — he is exalted in power!” ‘We cannot reach Him’ sounds like a locked and double-bolted door, to loosely borrow a phrase from C. S. Lewis. We are too small, too insignificant, too hidden in our humanness to imagine He can see us. And yet — the way opens. The Red Sea parts. The curtain, torn from top to bottom. There He is, down on one knee, smiling warmly, eyes sparkling, and He says, “I saw you here. I’m Jesus, and your life’s about to change.”

Thanks so much for reading, friend.I pray this post opened a pathway into your heart today.

Selah, beloved.