Where in the world is the cookie?
This was my thought as I saw the mountain-pile of icing in front of me.
I assumed there was a cookie amidst the mound of chocolate and icing, but it was certainly undetectable to the eye!
Last night, my children used left over icing to decorate and ice some sugar cookies. If you have ever allowed children to ice cookies on their own... and then encountered their proud works of art after the fact, you know what I witnessed last night. Absolutely all the sugar cookies were almost entirely engulfed and lost under the lavished icing.
Living out the motto: if a little is good, a lot is better... my children lavished the cookies with lots and lots of color and chocolate. And, I won't even begin to describe the lavished colored sprinkles that adorned the iced mounds.
This was the exact picture that came to mind this morning as the preacher read from Ephesians 1. I began to think on the word "lavished". "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding."
We can only lavish from that which we have a lot of... abundance is a must. We must have much in order to pour out much, to pour out lavishly. We must have wealth in order to lavish wealth, right?
Webster defines "lavish" as giving without limit. A limit-less supply is required to give lavishly. My children lavished icing and sprinkles. We had loads of both and still had left-overs when they were done with the cookies. They could lavish. And they did with gumption!
God tells us in Ephesians that grace and forgiveness, through the blood of Jesus, came from God's riches and His wealth. God is wealthy in what?
God is wealthy in grace. He is rich in grace. What a thought! He has abundance of grace... plenty. And it is from this wealth of grace that He lavished His grace, redemption and forgiveness on us. His grace is limit-less.
We didn't have enough cookies to satisfy the riches of colored icing. Instead we ended up with many mounds of covered sugar cookies. ...
There are simply not enough sins that I could commit that would spend God's riches and grace-wealth.
A sinful, wayward and unworthy girl... lavished in grace, covered in precious blood, decorated with love and sprinkled with forgiveness. Oh the God we serve! Oh the Heavenly Father that calls us His own! Are there words enough to express Who He is and what He has done for us!?
edited re-post from Feb. 2009