Free Gift: Grace

Sometimes when life gets hard, here we forget that the same gospel that rescued us is the gospel that makes living for God’s glory possible.

We were once under the curse of sin, and headed for destruction. But God intervened, rescued us and is now restoring us to look like his Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. He’s changing us to make us useful for His kingdom.

Sin had done a number on us. We chose it, loved it and were under its curse. Our sin separated us from God. And we sought it out.

Romans 1 tells us that we all start out with a knowledge of God. Then we digress. We become unthankful, unwise– though we think we are enlightened– and we become fools.

“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Claiming to be wise, they became fools,  and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.”

We dreamed up a God of our own liking. Something that would fit what we wanted. This is different for every person. Some worship the earth, rocks, idols made of wood, money, etc. Whatever you are pursuing in your life wholeheartedly is your god.

And the scary thing is that God lets us make our own choice.

Pretty miserable place to be…

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us” intervened.

Jesus came to save us because we could not save ourselves.

No amount of good works, church attendance, feeding the poor, helping the homeless is going to help. Why? Because God makes the rules, and He said that grace is what saves us. Through faith in Jesus Christ’s death, burial and resurrection.

Jesus said , “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”

“He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

If God made all things, he has the final say. Period.

You may think this post unloving, but it is actually the epitome of love.

Imagine a friend who was dying of cancer, and she really believed that by sucking on a rock, she would be healed. Would you hem and haw and say “She really believes that what she is doing is right. Who am I to say that chemotherapy is the way to go?”

No, that would be absurd. That would be living a fantasy. No matter how earnestly she believed that sucking a rock would help her, she would be wrong. And you could at least tell her about chemotherapy and hope she listened. The point is, you would warn someone you cared about if you believed that they were believing a lie.

It is the same with the gospel. It is a free gift. It is because of the amazing grace of God. It is ours because he loved us. That is just the way God is. But it is your choice. You can accept it or reject it. But, realize that your choices have eternal consequences.

Once you have trusted your soul to Christ for safekeeping, he will enable you to live for him. The same grace that saves you is available to help you to live each day for His glory. If your life is a mess of sin and despair, look to him for grace. “God is able to make all grace abound toward you, so that you ALWAYS having all sufficiency can abound to every good work.”