Salvation is received, not achieved.  We cannot do anything to deserve it or earn it, not even acts of obedience or righteousness.  God does it all… The Father wills it.  The Son secures it.  The Holy Spirit administers it.  What a gift!  What a God! He doesn’t help those who help themselves; He helps those who cannot help themselves.  From start to finish, it’s all by grace… Chosen.  Called.  Converted.  Completed.  Someday every genuine believer will be fully and forever delivered from the presence of sin into the presence of God.  Not because we are able to keep the law, but because Jesus is able to keep us.

What does it mean to be “saved” by grace? It means to be rescued from something for something.  From sin, for righteousness.  From Satan, for God.  From punishment, for reward.  From death, for life.  From hell, for heaven.  From wrath, for joy.  From brokenness, for glory.  We must be rescued because we are incapable of reversing the curse on mankind caused by our sin.  God is undoing all of the horrible things that sin has done and replacing them all with good things, beautiful things, joyful things, perfect things, eternal things. This is all by grace, which means…The only requirement for salvation is receiving it by faith.

If you think you can simply be a “good person” to get into heaven when you die, then you have grossly underestimated what God requires for entrance. Something we need to understand is this: our standards may be low enough that we can meet them, but God’s are high enough that we never will.  As sinners, the best we can do does not measure up.  The good news is this:  We don’t have to because Jesus already did on behalf of all who put their trust in Him.  Jesus lived for us.  Jesus died for us.  Someday we will be accepted into heaven by grace through faith in this: He exchanged His perfect life for our imperfect ones.

Nothing is free.  When a gift is received, someone had to first secure it.  Someone had to cover the cost.  Someone had to pay.   You and I are grace recipients who are gifted divine blessings.  These are… Gifts, not wages.  Free to us, not earned by us.  Heaven-sent, not earth-generated.  But let’s never, no never, lose sight of this truth:  they came at a staggeringly high cost.  Someone had to pay, and that Someone was Jesus.  Except for what He did on the cross, sinners like you and me would get nothing but judgment. Instead, we get every good thing God has purposed for us. We get it all because Jesus paid for it all.

Nothing and everything.  If you don’t understand both of these aspects of grace, you don’t understand grace.  As sinful people, we can do nothing to meet God’s standards, avoid God’s wrath, deserve God’s blessing, earn God’s forgiveness, or enter God’s heaven.  But God did everything by sending Jesus to forgive us, free us and favor us so we can enjoy a rich and restored relationship with Him forever.  We don’t buy from, bargain with or bribe God for what He does for us; we receive it freely by faith. The reality of grace is… God doesn’t help those who help themselves.  He helps those who cannot help themselves.

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.

We can define grace without really recognizing it.  We know grace is God’s “unmerited 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.  Grace is all around us.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

One reason why are told to “rejoice in the Lord always” is because all other things we might rejoice in will change.  Circumstances change.  People change.  Interests change.  When we look for our ultimate joy in something that isn’t steady and reliable, neither will our joy be. Circumstances can become unfavorable, people can become unpleasant and interests can become unfulfilling.  But God doesn’t change!  He never goes from good to bad.  So, let us enjoy the gifts of God as a means of deeper joy in Him, remembering… We can have unending joy when we look for it in our unchanging God.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.