Hello All,

As I sit here writing this email I am overwhelmed by the Love and mercy of our Great Father.  While praying this morning the Lord took me back to a verse, in Ephesians, that I used last night.  In this verse there is a word that I alluded to, but didn’t really expound upon, and this morning He highlighted it to me…

Eph 2:4
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, NKJV

Here, in verse four, it doesn’t just say that God has mercy…it says that He is “rich” in mercy.  Think about that for a moment…God is rich in mercy towards us.  So, you know me, I had to find out what this word “rich” means…

Rich – NT:4145 – wealthy, abounding, abundantly supplied (Thayer’s Greek Lexicon)

Well, that in and of itself is overwhelming, when you put into perspective that it is His grace that is “abundantly supplied” to us.  But, when you continue reading you see that it is because of His “great” love for us…not because of anything we have or haven’t done.  To help explain why I was so overwhelmed with this I want to also define “great.”

Great – NT:4183 – much, strong, intense (Thayer’s Greek Lexicon)

Wow, just meditate on that, Father God has “much, strong, intense” love for us.  I know grammatically it looks like I got caught up with the adjectives, but when you realize that they are describing His love for us…come on…that is awesome!  To further explain why I was so overwhelmed this morning you must understand that this “much, strong, intense” love was given while we were still dead in sin…

Eph 2:5-6
5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, NKJV

We must renew our minds to the fact that God is an abundant God…and we cannot relegate that to merely physical needs.  It does include physical needs but it supersedes the physical to the spiritual.  Once we see that He is abundant towards us spiritually…even when we were dead in sin…we will realize how much more that abundance will affect every area of our lives, now that we are His children.  We can see this in the very next verse where Paul describes that God wants to show or demonstrate the “exceeding riches of His grace” towards us…

Eph 2:7
7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. NKJV

How can a holy God shower the richness of His love, mercy and grace upon us…the answer is found in Eph 1:7…

Eph 1:7
7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. NKJV