— Midweek Meditations:
thoughts, inspiration and encouragement
from ACF community members —
I’ve been thinking about the theme of grace lately. I especially like the phrase, “it’s all by grace”, because if not for God’s grace, where would we be? How would we face impossibly heart-breaking situations, how would we find the capacity to forgive others and forgive ourselves, how would we otherwise have the incomparable gift of faith to begin with – if not by this same grace?
I think of grace as something being poured out on our lives – it’s undeserved, sometimes not even noticed or acknowledged, but once it is recognized, our hearts explode with wonder and gratitude. Grace covers over our failures – none of us are perfect by any measure, but God’s grace is bigger.
The origin of the word grace means “loving kindness”, and the more we experience of the love and kindness of God, we are able to pass on this characteristic to others. Grace leads to gracious behaviour.
“Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand…”
Romans 5:2
My recent favourite song touches on this theme and ties the idea of grace and the ensuing gratitude when we’ve recognized grace for what it is our lives.
Grace upon grace
(On Repeat, Hillsong United)
Morning by morning
Day after day will I sing
Praise upon praise
God be exalted
Over and over again
“In our lives there’s a parallel of grace being on repeat, and then praise being on repeat as our response to God’s grace. It’s so simple yet profound and encourages me to believe that God’s going to give me the grace, so I’m going to give Him the praise knowing that He’s going to give me the grace again. I think that’s true for anybody anywhere, regardless of their story, what season they’re in, or how life looks like – and I pray it never gets lost on us.” – Joel Houston
Dear Father,
Help us to recognize Your grace poured out daily in our lives, your unconditional love for us and your great gift of grace through Your son Jesus Christ, our Saviour.
Amen
The ACF Midweek Meditations
are written by a diverse group of our church members with the intention to seek God’s fingerprints in our lives. They range from somber to humorous and are inspired by all facets of live and faith. Written by ordinary people from all walks of life, they reflect a wide range of Christian backgrounds and spiritualities.
Each week’s text portrays the individual viewpoint of its author. They might not always resonate with everyone, and are not meant to be understood as representing the Anglican Church Freiburg as a whole. Yet, as a church that is aiming to ‘Build a Community of Grace’ we seek to practice learning from and listening to one another.
We pray that these humble ponderings add a small spark of blessing to your week.
Freiburg Anglican Church 
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