ALPHA MAAMA (A.M.)

 TU’APULELULU SIULAI 16, 2026

PALOVEPI 27-29; ‘EFESO 2:1-10

There isn't a person alive who doesn't need God's rescuing, forgiving, empowering, transforming, and delivering grace.

‘Oku ‘ikai ke ‘i ai ha tokotaha mo’ui ‘oku ‘ikai te ne fiema’u ke fakahaofi, fakamolemole’i, fakaivia, liliu ‘e he fu’u kelesi fakatau’ataina ‘a e ‘Otua.

The writers of Proverbs often use graphic word pictures to make important gospel points. Consider how the following argues for the power of God's grace:

Crush a fool in a mortar with a pestle

along with crushed grain,

yet his folly will not depart from him. (Prov. 27:22)

Imagine that we are in my kitchen, and on my counter stands a mortar and pestle, made of stone. You watch me put a few ounces of wheat grains into the mortar and begin to pound and grind them with the pestle. After a few minutes of physical exertion, I invite you to look into the mortar. What will you see? You will still see wheat. It may have changed its shape and become a fine powder, but it will still be 100 percent wheat, just as it was when it was a whole grain. You could watch me pound on that wheat for ten days, but it would still be wheat, because wheatness is its fundamental nature and all the pounding in the world will not change it.

So it is with every fool ever born-and that includes all of us--because sin reduces all of us to fools. Since foolishness (sin) is a matter of nature and not just behavior, external manipulation will not change us at the level of the true nature of our hearts. God's law is important, but rigid enforcement of his law alone will not change the character of our hearts. Education cannot change our nature. Threats of consequences have no power to change our hearts. Changes of situation and location do not address what is foundationally wrong with us. If our sin were just about behavior, then behavioral control and retraining would take care of our problem. This proverb is in the Bible to help us understand that nothing has the power to address the deepest of human problems-except the grace of the Savior. If any of the external forces I mentioned had the power to change the fundamental composition of our hearts, then Jesus would not have had to come.

Rather than discourage you, this proverb should cause you to reflect with gratitude on the amazing gift of the glorious grace of Jesus. God, in love, refused to leave us in our natural state. He had a plan to give us the help that he alone could give. Jesus's life, death, and resurrection offer us the promise of real change, which reaches the very character of our hearts.

The mortar and pestle teach us that external forces cannot change us, and this is why we daily seek and celebrate the grace of Jesus. He alone breaks the power of sin and sets the captive free. Celebrate his grace today.