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WOW this Grace!
I don’t think many people has grasped and consciously thought about it. What does Grace means to you? How do we act upon God’s Grace given in our lives? What Grace can bring to our lives? Most of all, and really think about this. Do we deserve it?
Firstly what is Grace?
Grace is one of the ways of describing how God acts. There are a number of important scriptures that supports and belong to this great Bible theme of grace. Here are a few of them, but the more you delve deep reading the Bible, you will learn more and begin to understand more and see the true meaning of grace.
1. God chose a people for himself, yes that’s right for himself, ‘Israel’. God was in no way obliged to do this, but he did and did it out of “grace” (Deuteronomy 7: 7-8)
2. God made an agreement, a covenant of friendship, with his people. His grace meant that he remained loyal to them, even when his people were unfaithful to him (Psalm 25: 14 – Hosea 11)
3. God’s grace is seen most of all in his ‘rescue operation’. His salvation of sinners (Ephesians 2:5)
4. God’s grace is known by sinners when their sins are pardoned and forgiven. This grace is totally undeserved, but it is ‘love shown to the unlovely’ (Ephesians 2: 1-10)
5. God’s grace moves sinners to respond to God and to change people. (Acts 2: 37-41) And sinners, saved by grace, know more and more of God by grace (beginning of Galatians 4:9)
Grace and Salvation:
Let’s focus on God’s act of salvation, because that’s where we see grace most wonderfully is displayed.
· The grace of the LORD Jesus Christ is what is important, especially the grace shown in his death on the cross. (Galatians 1: 3-4; Galatians 2: 20-21)
· We are called by Grace. We come to know this salvation because in his grace God chooses us (Galatians 1: 15) the way we lay hold of such grace is by faith (Galatians 2: 16). So we are saved by grace to become new people (Galatians 6: 15)
· We are kept by grace. Grace preserves us (John 10: 27-29). There is this one hymn which puts it like this: “My name from the palms of his hands eternity will not erase. Impressed on his heart it remains. In marks of indelible grace”.
So as you can now see that God keeps us by grace. As we have seen in the book of Galatians, Paul has written repeatedly that keeping the Law in order to stay right with God is not God’s way at all (Galatians 5: 4) Which follows on to my last part about Grace and Law.
Grace and the Law:
If we’re kept by grace, can we behave how we want to? NO! It matters how we live. We don’t keep the law to commend ourselves to God to make us right with him, nor do we irresponsibly set aside the Law. NO! We try to keep the Law out of a devotion to our father God (Galatians 5: 6). As children of God, it’s only natural that we want to please him. That’s why the encouragement of, for example in , Galatians 5: 5---6 are important we need the Law as principles to show us what a godly life is like.
And we know the Holy Spirit helping us live such a life Galatians 5: 22-23 as we obey Jesus and follow his example. And the wonder of grace, you can’t think about this theme of grace for long without being amazed! As we see that without shadow of doubt, we see are lost, corrupt, and sinful in God’s sight and deserve only his righteous punishment, we’re bound to marvel at the costly grace that meant that the Son of God himself died on the cross for us.
I don’t think many people has grasped and consciously thought about it. What does Grace means to you? How do we act upon God’s Grace given in our lives? What Grace can bring to our lives? Most of all, and really think about this. Do we deserve it?
Firstly what is Grace?
Grace is one of the ways of describing how God acts. There are a number of important scriptures that supports and belong to this great Bible theme of grace. Here are a few of them, but the more you delve deep reading the Bible, you will learn more and begin to understand more and see the true meaning of grace.
1. God chose a people for himself, yes that’s right for himself, ‘Israel’. God was in no way obliged to do this, but he did and did it out of “grace” (Deuteronomy 7: 7-8)
2. God made an agreement, a covenant of friendship, with his people. His grace meant that he remained loyal to them, even when his people were unfaithful to him (Psalm 25: 14 – Hosea 11)
3. God’s grace is seen most of all in his ‘rescue operation’. His salvation of sinners (Ephesians 2:5)
4. God’s grace is known by sinners when their sins are pardoned and forgiven. This grace is totally undeserved, but it is ‘love shown to the unlovely’ (Ephesians 2: 1-10)
5. God’s grace moves sinners to respond to God and to change people. (Acts 2: 37-41) And sinners, saved by grace, know more and more of God by grace (beginning of Galatians 4:9)
Grace and Salvation:
Let’s focus on God’s act of salvation, because that’s where we see grace most wonderfully is displayed.
· The grace of the LORD Jesus Christ is what is important, especially the grace shown in his death on the cross. (Galatians 1: 3-4; Galatians 2: 20-21)
· We are called by Grace. We come to know this salvation because in his grace God chooses us (Galatians 1: 15) the way we lay hold of such grace is by faith (Galatians 2: 16). So we are saved by grace to become new people (Galatians 6: 15)
· We are kept by grace. Grace preserves us (John 10: 27-29). There is this one hymn which puts it like this: “My name from the palms of his hands eternity will not erase. Impressed on his heart it remains. In marks of indelible grace”.
So as you can now see that God keeps us by grace. As we have seen in the book of Galatians, Paul has written repeatedly that keeping the Law in order to stay right with God is not God’s way at all (Galatians 5: 4) Which follows on to my last part about Grace and Law.
Grace and the Law:
If we’re kept by grace, can we behave how we want to? NO! It matters how we live. We don’t keep the law to commend ourselves to God to make us right with him, nor do we irresponsibly set aside the Law. NO! We try to keep the Law out of a devotion to our father God (Galatians 5: 6). As children of God, it’s only natural that we want to please him. That’s why the encouragement of, for example in , Galatians 5: 5---6 are important we need the Law as principles to show us what a godly life is like.
And we know the Holy Spirit helping us live such a life Galatians 5: 22-23 as we obey Jesus and follow his example. And the wonder of grace, you can’t think about this theme of grace for long without being amazed! As we see that without shadow of doubt, we see are lost, corrupt, and sinful in God’s sight and deserve only his righteous punishment, we’re bound to marvel at the costly grace that meant that the Son of God himself died on the cross for us.
