- The Grace of God and Gifts Under Pews
- The Grace of God and Our Adoption
- The Grace of God and Used Cars
- The Grace of God and Learning to Walk
Years ago, our family found ourselves in need of a second vehicle. The car I drove, a real clunker, had given up the ghost. So we began to pray, asking God for the means to purchase a replacement vehicle.
A few days later, one of the sweetest couples I’ve known came to me with a proposal. They had no idea about the loss of our car, but they had just purchased a new car and wanted to give us their old one. I was shocked. What a blessing! This was God at work, right?
But as wonderful as that sounds, my initial reaction was to decline the offer. I was thinking, “I just can’t accept that kind of gift. I’ll pay them for it, but I don’t want charity.” Something was stirring in me, telling me that I could not allow myself to be in a position where I couldn’t buy my family a car. I had to be able to take care of my issue on my own.
As I hesitated, my friend looked at me and said, “Look, I feel that God has told me to do this. Don’t rob me of the blessing of doing this for you.”
So I accepted the gift. And I’ve never cherished a vehicle more in my life.
Jesus, God the Son, took our sins on himself. As we’ve seen in the previous two posts, all of God’s wrath that we earned was poured out on Jesus instead. Jesus paid the penalty that you and I deserved to pay, and that penalty is death.
Jesus saw you from that cross. He knew you and all your faults. He knew you and all your sins, even the ones you haven’t committed yet. He loved you and died on that cross to pay your penalty. You don’t have to pay the penalty. All you have to do is accept the gift of his grace.
For some of us, that’s where things get difficult. We don’t like being given something we don’t deserve. When someone does something for us, we feel like we owe them. I’m that way. Someone pays for my lunch, my automatic reaction is to say, “Next time’s on me.” That person will say, “You don’t have to do that, I just wanted to pay today, no need to pay me back.” But next time, I’ll remember that it’s my turn.
When we hear about God’s amazing gift of grace, our initial reaction is to decline the offer. We say, “I just can’t accept that kind of gift.” I don’t deserve that kind of love. There has to be a way for me to pay Jesus back for this. I don’t want charity. I cannot allow myself to get in a position where I can’t earn my way back to God’s good side. I have to be able to take care of this issue on my own.
But the truth is, you can’t take care of your sin on your own. There is nothing you can do to earn your salvation. There is no point in your life where you can finally say, “Okay, now I deserve to be saved.” There will never be a moment in your existence where your good outweighs your bad. No matter how much good you do, you cannot erase your sin. The penalty for sin is death. Someone is going to have to die for your sins. It’s either going to be you, or it’s going to be Jesus.
Jesus, in his grace, says, “I’ve already paid your penalty. Accept my gift.” That’s amazing grace. All we can do is accept. So accept the gift. You’ll never cherish anything more in your life.
So how do we accept the gift of grace?
Through faith.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)
God offers his grace, and we accept it in faith. By faith, we believe that Jesus died to pay our penalty, and we trust in his ability to forgive us. We turn away from trusting in our abilities to earn our way to heaven and turn to God’s ability to save us. By faith, we trust God to give us the grace he offers even though we know we don’t deserve it.
And in the end, we realize that we can’t boast in our goodness, our works, our knowledge, our anything — we can only boast in our God and his grace.
God does all of this because he loves you. Do you ever doubt that? Then know this: our salvation, from start to finish, is from God. God, in his infinite love for you, not only provided the grace that allowed you to come to him, but he even provided the faith you needed to accept that grace.
Let me say that another way: God offers us his incredible grace, which we accept through faith. But God also gives us that faith.
You can say yes to God because he called you to himself.
For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:22-24)
The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. (Acts 16:14)
“This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” (John 16:65)
God loved, he acted, he provided, he called. He’s done it all, and it’s all because he loves you.
That’s amazing grace.
Will we ever be able to fully comprehend the magnitude, the incredibleness of God’s grace? We looked earlier at Ephesians 2:8-9, one of the most important passages in the Bible. But spend some time reading, meditating on, and praying through the four verses that come before that passage:
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:4-7)
God loves you so much that he didn’t just make you right with him. When you were dead in your sins, literally dead, deceased, not alive spiritually, destined for eternity apart from God, God made you alive. God did that. God provided the way, called you to himself, and gave you the faith to accept his offer of grace.
So back to our question, will we ever be able to fully comprehend the magnitude of God’s grace?
As a believer, your eternity is going to be spent in God’s presence. You’re on earth right now, but your future is so certain that Paul writes as if it’s already happened. And what does Paul say will be happening for eternity? “…so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
In heaven, God will be showing you, you personally, all the riches of his grace. It will take eternity for God to show you all that his grace means and all that his grace does for you because the riches of his grace are limitless, incomprehensible, and immeasurable. Such is the grace and love of your Father towards you.
Oh, and one more thing: Glenn and Suzy, I haven’t forgotten. Thank you.