Homemade Jam

Every time she would be around for a meal she would finish her meal with a piece of bread and then heap a huge amount of jam onto her sandwich.

Ephesians 1:1-14

Reference:  v. 7b-8a …in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us.  (TNIV Bible)

Explore:  We had a family friend, Penny, who would often come to see us and stay for lunch.  Our regular lunchtime meal was soup and sandwiches.  Along with meat and salad and various condiments we would always have a jar of Mum's homemade jam on offer.  When you grow up with homemade jam there is no other jam that comes close to tasting as good, and clearly Penny felt the same way.  Every time she would be around for a meal she would finish her meal with a piece of bread and then heap a huge amount of jam onto her sandwich.  Penny would put so much jam on that the layer of jam usually ended up being thicker than the piece of bread itself!  We would all hold our tongues out of respect but we were all hanging out to say, "Would you like some bread with that jam Penny?"  Now, whenever one of our family lavishly spreads too much topping on their bread we will ask, "Oh, having a Penny sandwich are we?!" 

Application:  While my family can joke about people overloading their bread with jam this is nothing in comparison to how much God lavishly pours out His grace upon us.  If we were the piece of bread and God's grace was the jam then we would be so completely covered that you would never even think that there was a piece of bread there in the first place!  We don't deserve it, we haven't earned it and while we're still on this earth I'm not sure we'll ever be able to fully appreciate it, but God gives everyone such amazing grace that it covers our sin so completely, it's like they were never there in the first place.  Let us not take this grace for granted but receive it humbly and live our lives in fullness knowing of God's lavishly given grace.

Prayer:  Lord, we thank you for your grace, that you would forgive our sins and allow us to draw closer to You.  May we not take it lightly but use our freedom to give You glory.  Amen.

What does God's grace mean to your life?

Ephesians