Grace. It's a small word at glance, but the meaning, from a Christian view point, is much bigger than the spelling! The grace of God is so powerful and impossible for our mortal minds to even comprehend.
Galatians 2:16 says: "Y
et we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified." and
Ephesians 2:4-10
"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. 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. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."
I'm sorry to say that there have been alot of times when I have (unintentionally) underestimated God's grace. I tried, in a sense, to justify myself by being a "good girl". If I did something that I knew I shouldn't have I would go into a panic thinking "that's too many! That's too many!", which we all know just one sin is too many, but I was looking at it (again unknowingly) like there was a scale and when you hit a certain amount of sins you were kicked out of the club. But when the realization of what I had been reading in the Bible FINALLY sunk in, the same passages I had read for years and years, I was completely blown away!! I had read these verse thousands of times and I had heard it from the pulpit, from my parents, and from reading books, but it just never got through my thick skull. We can't save ourselves. No matter how many nice encouraging things we say, no matter how much we give to the poor, no matter how much read our Bible, those things won't save us!!! One sin separates us from God. Just one. And the only atonement for our sins is what is salvation through Christ Jesus. He is the only way.
Mark 16:16
" Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned"
And we didn't, and can never, do anything to deserve His salvation! That is why it's a gift. He gave the gift of salvation through grace. Now, by no means does that mean that we're free to do what we want no matter if it's right or wrong. Romans 6:1-3 says: "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." It's ridiculous to even think it! His saving grace should make us want to please Him all the more.
Sorry that this was such a long post, this has just been on my mind for a long time now and I'm still in awe of it.
I hope y'all have a great weekend!!
In Christ,
Living in the United States has many privileges that other countries only dream about. We can choose what career we want to pursue, we can worship God freely and in the way we believe is right, we can choose to have more than 2 kids, and we can basically choose to do whatever we want to do. We enjoy this freedom in the US but actually, the power of choice wasn't given to us by our founding fathers (although they did help protect it as a freedom), it was given to us by God. He gave us a mind of our own and the ability make the choices in our lives.
