I love this summary of how Jesus extends grace to us and what it means for today and eternity. Eugene Peterson shares it in Romans 5:17-21- If death got the upper hand through one man’s wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, absolute life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides? 18-19 Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right. 20-21 All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.

God’s response to a broken and lost world is grace, grace through his son Jesus Christ.
Folks, do we stay away from God because of our fear, pain, shame, hiding? Stay lost and in our brokenness or do we see God’s response to our broken world?

His presence offers us victory, trust in spite of pain, provision, and grace. When we choose his response, our broken world can begin to heal. Where do you need to receive and live in God’s response? Where do you need victory? Where do you need to trust in the midst of pain? Where do you need to receive his provision, covering? Where do you need to receive grace?

And we can co-create with him to bring healing to the broken and lost world around us. Remember, God commissioned Adam and Eve to bring life, be fruitful and multiply, to guard creation. In God’s response to a broken world, he is inviting us back to that creative order. How are you bringing life to those around? Not in the way you think it should be, but in the way God responded to the broken world. We can bring victory, presence in the midst of pain, provision, and grace.

God gives us the choice, the unending choice before the tree of testing; choose to be like god and take wisdom for ourselves or trust the image of God to provide a way in his victory and grace despite the pain. Because we can either experience his divine blessing and life or we can depend on our own schemes, plan, power, and wisdom. The choice is yours.