In Alma 5:48, it reads "I know that Jesus Christ shall come, yea, the Son, the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace, and mercy, and truth.". Thinking about those words made me wonder, what is the difference between "grace" and "mercy".
The Bible Dictionary says of grace "The main idea of the word is divine means of help or strength, given through the bounteous mercy and love of Jesus Christ....grace is an enabling power that allows men and women to lay hold on eternal life and exaltation after they have expended their own best efforts."
Mercy, according to the Guide to the Scriptures, is "the spirit of compassion, tenderness, and forgiveness. Mercy is one of the attributes of God. Jesus Christ offers mercy to us through his atoning sacrifice."
To me this means that "grace" gives the Lord the ability to fill in the gaps where we falter. Mercy is the compassion that makes him want to fill in that gap. I love where it says that Christ will step in after we have expended our own best efforts.
As I thought about both of these I realized how much grace and mercy has applied in my life, and how much more I can apply it to my life. Most importantly the idea that all I am expected to do is my very best, no more, no less. Just my best, that doesn't mean perfect, that means my very best. "It is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do” (2 Ne. 25:23).
Just as in my last post about fighting a good warfare, we aren't expected to win the whole war, just to put up our best fight. Christ will win the war for us, but we have to be the best soldiers we can be. We have to use the weapons he has given us to fight that war in the best way we can.
The end of Alma 1:27 says "they did all labor, every man according to his strength". This goes along with the whole theme of grace. We are only were expected to labor according to their strength. I love this idea!
Our Savior truly is full of grace and mercy!
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