God's outrageous grace

I am learning today about God's outrageous grace. He has an unfair generosity, doesn't He? If we judge Him by worldly standards. He is prodigally gracious, He holds parties for those who only discover Him in their final days, whilst the faithful might be tempted to sulk (The prodigal son), He pays the wages of the last into the vineyard and pays them the same amount as those who began their work with the birdsong of dawn perhaps to their confusion (Matthew 20). Like the love you get from the most disobedient of children, cherished and remembered, God welcomes us with open arms and says 'I think no longer of the time when you forsook me, when you did it all your own way, I love you completely and I always have and now that you love me too and know from whence this beauty flows, I can shower and heap upon you ever more exuberant displays of that love. This same love I shower on my forever faithful too - I do not change the measure but pour out my love on all my children (the sun shines and the rain pours on us all).'

When we accept this love and recognise from whence it came how can we not want to keep the commands of the one who loves us so...

When we look into the mirror, Christ smiles back but we stare out too and we see are aware of our own shortcomings and so have no other recourse but to throw ourselves back on God's grace again because we keep making mistakes, like the children of loving parents do. So with a penitent heart we are assured again through the outrageousness of God's grace, a grace we can never earn and do not deserve; but a grace He freely gives!