The biblical story is about a God of grace sending His Son to people in need of grace to rescue them from sin by grace so we can be welcomed into His family to live by grace and serve as ambassadors who tell others about His grace so they might also experience His grace. This beautiful narrative is one in which God repeatedly reaches down to and out for an undeserving people who repeatedly push against and away from Him. Where sin abounds, grace abounds even more! When you trust in Jesus, you can know this: Your chapter in the story is unfolding, and its end has already been written. Grace has the final word.
Grace Is All Around Us
We know grace is God’s “unmerited forgiveness, freedom and favor” toward us, but that’s very generalized. What does it specifically look like in everyday life? It looks like: forgiveness during failures, peace during storms, hope during trials, comfort during heartaches, joy during suffering, guidance during uncertainty, rest during busyness, strength during temptation, blessing during good times, help during bad times, and so much more. But even that is not as pin-point accurate as grace really is, for it shows up in countless minutiae within each of those categories. Look and see… Grace is all around us.
It’s A Buffet, Not A Bite
By grace, God serves up an endless feast of soul-nourishing, soul-delighting blessings for those who trust in Jesus. This includes: forgiveness, friendship, freedom, wisdom, power, peace, purpose, joy, hope, security, rest, justice, thankfulness, assurance, deliverance, guidance, significance, endurance, comfort, companionship, care, courage, transformation, satisfaction, love and life. And this is not a complete list! The countless implications and applications of the benefits that are ours by grace are staggering and extend from now until eternity. It’s a buffet, not a bite. In Jesus, we have the life we’ve always wanted.
Grace Is
Grace is the forgiveness, freedom and favor of God given freely to us. It is forgiveness… God is just and cannot simply ignore our sin; He is also the Justifier Who sent Jesus to be punished in our place in order to pardon us. It is freedom… Sin’s controlling, enslaving influence in us has been broken, and we are empowered not to sin as we live by God’s indwelling Spirit. It is favor … Every good thing in our lives is a gift from heaven that would not be ours apart from Him. This grace is unlimited and unending, so even as we stumble in our faith, there will always be… More forgiveness. More freedom. More favor.
Grace Has Gotten Us This Far And Grace Will Get Us …
Every good thing about who we are, what we do or what we have is the result of God’s grace. It is all undeserved and unmerited. Yes… We may live wisely. We may be highly motivated. We may work hard. But none of this originates with us because God freely supplied the ability, opportunity, voracity and community to make these things possible. He’s been working on our behalf our entire lives! Because God is gracious, we do not have the fear, frustration, or futility that comes from depending on ourselves when we depend on Him. Rest in this today: grace has gotten us this far; grace will get us all the way home.
The Evidence Of God’s Grace
What is going on in your life today? If something good is happening, it’s by grace. If something bad is being handled, it’s by grace. That sunset, steak and surprise text. That’s by grace. The trial you’re getting through and the trouble you got through. Yep, grace. Your ability, opportunity and community … grace, grace, grace. The tears wiped away and the smiles of the day. Grace on top of grace. Beating hearts, peaceful sleep, acts of service, growing pains, caring friends, strength to continue, paid bills, lessons learned, fresh water, hugs. You can’t look in any direction without seeing the evidence of God’s grace.
Headed In The Right Direction
It may not be the easy way. It may not be the popular way. It may not be the crowded way. But following Jesus is always the right way. As it has been said, when the whole world is running towards the cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind. But he is actually the only one in his right mind headed the right way no matter how hard, unaccepted or lonely it may be. So, let us follow Jesus confident that He will always lead us to the right place at the right time. We’ll often be heading in the opposite direction of the crowd, but we’ll always be headed right to where we need to be.
Grace To Begin Again
There are three questions we should regularly ask in an honest-as-we-can-be evaluation of our spiritual journey with Jesus. First, how am I relating to God through my daily prayer and Bible time? Second, how regular and authentic is my corporate worship with others? Third, how am I stewarding my time and resources for the kingdom of God? These are essential parts of us knowing Jesus and making Him known so that God is honored in us and we are happy in Him. When we have been less-than-faithful in these areas, let us ask God for grace to begin again, rejoicing that He will never stop being fully faithful to us.
God Is Working While We Wait
We don’t know what it means. We don’t know what is coming. We don’t know what to do. In times when the diagnosis is unknown, the situation is unresolved, the path is unfamiliar or the outcome is uncertain, what should we do? Sometimes the thing we are to do is to do nothing. We wait. We wait on the Lord. We wait in hope on the Lord. We wait in hope on the Lord to guide us, help us and deliver us. While it’s not easy to wait, it’s comforting to know that grace is on its way and that God will make a way. As our lives are on hold, let us remember with joy this beautiful truth: God is working while we wait.
Sharing And Bearing Burdens
As brothers and sisters in Christ, we are meant to bear each other’s burdens so that the heavy load of hardship is lightened. This could be to use our ears to listen to a confession or a cry. This could be to use our mouths to speak a word of encouragement. This could be to use our hands to meet a physical need. But none of this will happen if we don’t let each other know about burdens or if we don’t let each other help with burdens. God means for us to be dependent, not independent. Firstly, on Him. Secondly, on Him through each other. Today, share your burdens with others and bear the burdens of others.
Experiencing Peace And Making Peace
To be a peace-maker, we must first be a peace-experiencer. When we put our faith in Jesus, we immediately experience peace with God and increasingly experience the peace of God. With our sin no longer separating us from Him, we are then able to be instruments of peace in the lives of other sinners around us. We do this by proclaiming the gospel message and reminding those in conflict of the precious promises made to those who let His peace rule in their hearts instead of being ruled by their sin. Today, let us strive to bring people together with each other and people together with God.
Grace-Driven Effort, Not Human Effort
There are many things that God requires us to do as followers of Jesus. But it’s important we understand that it is grace-driven effort and not human effort that enables and encourages all of our obedience, service and every form of performance as Christians. We do everything secure in grace, by faith in grace, through reliance on grace and in gratitude for grace. His work saves us before we do our work. His work guides us to do our work. His work gives us power to do our work. His work makes us happy to do our work. Let us remember… Whatever the will of God calls us to do, the grace of God will cause us to do.
Sacrificing For Someone Else
When was the last time you gave up something for the sake of someone else? In other words, their gain required your loss because in order to help them you had to… Sacrifice money. Sacrifice time. Sacrifice sleep. Sacrifice comfort. Sacrifice plans. While it’s good to do good at any time, there are many times that in order to be the hands and feet of Jesus, we will also need to have the self-giving heart and mind of Jesus too. We are to show up and speak up for others not just when it’s easy, convenient and fun, but also when it’s hard, troublesome and unpleasant. This is how we are loved. This is how we are to love.
Infused With His Mercy
When we are moved by the mercy of God shown to us in Christ, we will move to show it to others. The merciful extend forgiveness for sin and kindness in suffering to the people around them because they have experienced it themselves. They have soft hearts, not hard ones. They have reaching hands, not folded ones. They have loving mouths, not condemning ones. This is only possible when the God of mercy takes our natural inclination to be intolerant or indifferent and supernaturally infuses us with His delight to do good to the needy. Today, let us ask Him to help us deal with others like He deals with us.
The Most Rewarding Thing We Can Ever Do
The most rewarding thing we can ever do is admit our lostness, helplessness and unworthiness to enter God’s kingdom, and depend completely on His mercy and grace. When we acknowledge our need for God and turn to Him in faith, we are given access to His kingdom and all of its benefits for us in Christ. The kingdom of heaven has a King … and it’s not you or me. It’s an infinitely wiser, stronger, kinder King who rules over the lives of His people for their good and unleashes so many blessings on them that it will take an eternity to experience them all. We get a foretaste for now and a feast forever. All hail King Jesus!
By Grace We Get Up And Fight On
People who love Jesus repent by making war against their sin instead of making excuses for it. Because His pardon is given to us, and His power is with us, and His presence is in us, we can be honest about our sin, and we can be victorious over it. We have been forgiven. We are free. We can be faithful. Therefore, let us strive for holy living while resting in the grace of God, remembering and rejoicing over this truth: what Jesus has done for us on the cross is sufficient to both cleanse and correct our transgressions. Because of grace we don’t give up in our fight against our sinfulness; by grace we get up and fight on.
Jesus Is Our Security
Jesus is our security… He laid down His life on the cross so we can be forgiven and freed from the one thing that can truly threaten us, our sin. He rose from the dead to defeat the one thing that we could never safeguard against, our mortality. He sits in the position of power and authority to rule for good the one thing that we struggle to control, our lives. He prepares for us a place and an inheritance to be enjoyed forever by ensuring the one thing that we cannot, our eternity. He promises to provide all we need until He brings us safely to the one thing in our future that we long for most, our home with Him.
We Must Encourage Each Other To Follow Jesus
Every Christian faces the ever-present danger of distraction, frustration, and temptation to become preoccupied with things that don’t matter, things that don’t satisfy and things that don’t last. That’s why Christian community is so important in helping each other keep the faith and keep our focus. Let us… Spur each other on to good works for Jesus. Strengthen each other with good news about Jesus. Support each other with good deeds like Jesus. By His grace and in His love… We must continually encourage each other to follow Jesus because the world is continually encouraging us not to follow Him.
Strengthening And Shaping Us
One of the ways that God changes us to become like Jesus is through hardships. We struggle to find answers on our own, we worry and doubt and fear often, we fall short over and over again, and we feel like many tasks in front of us are impossible. But, in time we learn to turn to and trust in the wisdom, strength, and grace of God as He transforms us into people of faith through our struggles. Hardships can be like hard workouts, strengthening us and shaping us for the better. As we face struggles, let us not forget this: sometimes God will change the situation; sometimes God will use the situation to change us.
Do You Believe In Jesus In That Way?
Know this: everyone is a believer. There is no one who is not a believer. We all believe in something. Even to disbelieve in one thing is to believe in another. All of life’s desires, decisions, and deeds flow from one of two basic beliefs: we believe that we need Jesus, or we believe that we do not need Him. Want to know what you believe in? Look at your life. You will pin your hopes upon your beliefs, devote your time and resources to your beliefs, look for happiness in your beliefs, find your sense of well-being in your beliefs, and stake your life on your beliefs. The question is: do you believe in Jesus in that way?
