There are many topics within
the confines of the Bible that we don't even get close to examining in all their
glory. One of those is the GRACE of God,
and this Grace stands out as the one thing that we need, the one thing we can rely
on and in turn it is also the one thing we get wrong.
Yes. I said we get it wrong. That is because we do what an old saying or
thought that goes like this, “pray like it all depends on God and work like it
depends on you.” That is a great
statement in theory, but it seems to teach us that we have something to do with
the receiving of God’s grace. That could
not be further from the truth.
What is so amazing about
grace? As we get closer to God the
sweeter and more complex His grace gets.
The further we are from God the more confusing His grace gets, and it
even gets a little clouded. Or in
churchy terms it is veiled where it is hard to see.
God desires His grace to be
easy to see, understand and to get. If
we were to ask each of us to give a definition of grace, we would come up with
lots of different thoughts. Most will
have wonderful facets or parts of the outcomes of grace, but few will contain
the heart of God for His grace… it is… The unmerited, undeserved, unearned
kindness and favor of God.
Ephesians
2:8-9 NLT
God saved you by his grace when you
believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for
the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.
These verses I hear quoted
often. We are reminded of many
things. The grace of God is a truly
amazing thing. The more I know Him, the
more amazed I am.
Grace is all about God and
not about me or us. He did everything
for us that we cannot do for ourselves.
Our lives went from headed to hell covered in death to heaven bound and
given fresh, new and abundant life. That
is the essence of the results of results of grace.
Ephesians
2:19 NLT
So now you Gentiles are no longer
strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people.
You are members of God’s family.
The change that the grace of
God brought us gave us life in the family of God. We were alienated without Him. Now we are family with Him. Sin keeps us in a place and with a
destination that we cannot do anything about on our own. That makes God’s grace that much more
precious.
Isaiah
64:6 NLT
We are all
infected and impure with sin. When we
display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and
our sins sweep us away like the wind.
Sin infected us. Grace impacts us and affects us with healing
and forgiveness. Literally there is
nothing we can trust to give us what God can give us. Many people try to work their way to faith or
heaven. Some think that their goodness
or their diplomas or their possessions can take the place of what God can
do. That could not be further from the
truth.
Romans
3:24 NLT
Yet God freely and graciously declares
that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from
the penalty for our sins.
I recently listened to a
message from Pastor Robert Morris
about grace, and it was truly amazing.
Not necessarily the sermon, but the content of Scripture truth
captivated me. You can find the podcast
for yourself. His description and
teaching on the cultural and origin of the word grace was awesome.
Grace is a free gift given
to people who don’t deserve it. That is
you and me.
Romans
11:6 NLT
And since it is through God’s kindness,
then it is not by their good works. For in that case, God’s grace would not be
what it really is—free and undeserved.
Morris shared this about grace
from “Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible”… grace
is the dimension of divine activity that enables God to confront human
indifference and rebellion with an inexhaustible capacity to forgive and to
bless.
Grace is the “inexhaustible
capacity” of God. As humans we cannot
duplicate it or even understand it. That
is why grace is so amazing. May we allow
ourselves to get lost in the overflow of God’s grace and help others experience
it like never before. We serve an
awesome God who offers us amazing grace!
Comments