“He answered me, “I am all you need. I give you My loving-favor. My power works best in weak people.” I am happy to be weak and have troubles so I can have Christ’s power in me.” –2 Corinthians 12:9
Best-selling author Ann Spangler helps us remember God’s grace for sinners through the stories in her book .
Ann shares the transformational power of Jesus by retelling us the story of Mary Magdalene.
“Mary is delivered of these demons and restored to her right mind. We don’t really know how she got to be demon possessed, but she is restored to her right mind and she probably looks totally different; certainly handles herself differently.
“Now she is going around with Jesus and His disciples, both male and female from town to town, and everybody would have known it, ‘Hey, there’s that crazy woman we used to see on the corner, look at her now.’ It’s a total transformation.”
By studying God’s word on a deeper level, we can get a better understanding of Mary’s story.
“The scripture often just gives us a portion of the story, but you can look at snippets, put it all together, and realize then there was ongoing relationship. She would have probably been present at a lot of the healings that Jesus did, subsequently, when He healed other people that were demon possessed, maybe she assisted in the sense of telling her story to those people…I think it’s interesting to picture it in a bigger way. Picture her presence in the New Testament.”
No matter what kind of a life someone has led before they met Jesus, it doesn’t disqualify them from His mercy and grace.
Ann shares another example of Jesus’ grace from Luke 7:38.
“The story that we’re familiar with of the woman wiping with her tears, this sort of immoral woman crashing this feast at the Pharisee put on and invited Jesus to be one of his guests, and she comes in and wipes the feet of Jesus with her tears.
“She’s contrasted with the Pharisee who is kind of really not accepting Jesus and just has him there to test him. It’s because she’s been forgiven, because she knows his mercy, that she’s willing to do anything for him. Whereas the Pharisee who is self-righteous and thinks he’s a good person in and of himself is more resistant to the Gospel.”
Just as the sinful women in the bible, the Lord will meet us where we are at to usher us into His grace.
“It’s the broken people often who the Lord seeks out and it’s in the dark places that His light shines so brightly. There are cracks in all of us and it’s in the cracks where that grace comes kind of flowing out…nobody is beyond God’s help.”
