Grace!

Grace!

Ephesians 2:8 AMP

[8] For it is by grace [God’s remarkable compassion and favor drawing you to Christ] that you have been saved [actually delivered from judgment and given eternal life] through faith. And this [salvation] is not of yourselves [not through your own effort], but it is the [undeserved, gracious] gift of God;

Man was made in the image and likeness of God, to bring God praise and pleasure. The plan was that man would not die, but sin came and attempted to distort the plan. God in His mercy laid out a plan for the restoration of man to the original position, and that plan was tied to His Person, His Son Jesus Christ. No matter how hard I tried, I could not fight sin on my own. No matter how hard I tried, sin became the default setting for me, and I just needed help outside of myself to get to where God wanted me to be. This is the impact of grace; it was not what I deserved that I got, and whatever it is I got is a reflection of God's nature,, and should make me humble. 

Grace did not consider my old condition; it simply offered me a way out of sin. It did not demand from me a price that I could not pay; it paid the full price for sin, and simply asked me to trust in that finished work, and live in daily appreciation of all that God had done for me. The verse above refers to it as God's remarkable compassion and favour, which draws us to Christ. If not for grace, how would I know and admit that I need help? If not for grace, how would I submit my whole life to someone I have never met? If not for grace, how would I give up the tangible and the physical for something that is yet unseen and in the future? 

Salvation is that change that God's grace has offered to all men. It makes no distinction between races, tribes or languages. It is just an offer of deliverance from judgment and the taking hold of eternal life. It does not consider the dirt of my past; the weight of my present, or the wiles, schemes or threats of the devil. None of these things can stop or hinder the amazing things God has put in motion for me, except my personal choices. This is where grace becomes careful; it does not force itself on anyone, and it will also not go against the exercise of my freewill. It is a free gift from God, and my response also must be a free gift from my heart. 

I could not do anything to add to, or remove anything from all that God has done and given to me. It has nothing to do with labour or personal striving, but as the verse above makes clear, it is the undeserved, gracious gift of God. This is what makes what God has done both sobering and amazing. It is sobering because there is no human value I can give to buy it, and there is nothing God demands from me, except total surrender of my heart. The rich, the poor, the influential and highly connected, the healthy and the sick all have access to the same grace and the same starting point. Now that you know what God has given, how would you respond? Would you surrender? God's time of favour is here.