The Grace of God

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.”

 

Philemon 1:25

 

What is the Grace of God?

It’s many different things.

It’s when a butterfly emerges from a cocoon after a long transformational period of being a caterpillar.

It’s the first breath a newborn baby takes.

It’s a mother’s or father’s love for their children.

It is when you help your neighbor fix their car because they do not have the funds to buy a better one.

It is taking time to spend with your loved ones.

I think you get the point.

God’s grace is everywhere and in every good deed, we do.

When thinking of what grace is in the Bible, it can be easiest to sum it up with the words of author Paul Zahl: Grace is unconditional love toward a person who does not deserve it.

Grace is different for everyone. But the Bible describes grace as a gift. Ephesians 4:7

It is an unconditional gift that God chooses to bless us and others with.

First, anyone who has ever received the gift of grace understands that a gift is much different than a loan.

A loan requires repayment or return to the person who gave it to you.

The fact that grace is a gift means that nothing is owed in return.

Second, gifts are free to the person who receives them. Although they are not free to the giver, who bears the expense.

The gift of salvation costs us, sinners, nothing. But the price of such an extravagant gift came at a great cost for Jesus, who died in our place.

 

Third, once a gift has been given, ownership of the gift has transferred, and it is now ours to keep.

A gift is permanent, not like a loan. When we give gifts, we permanently relinquish all rights to take back the gift in the future.

God’s grace is ours forever.

 

Fourth, when we give a gift we readily give up something we own.  Even if we just got it. We are willing to part with our value to give to someone else so that they might increase their worth. We become poorer and the recipient gains wealth.

This generous and voluntary exchange is visible in 2 Corinthians 8:9: You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor so that through his poverty you might become rich.

Finally, the Bible teaches that grace is completely unmerited.

The gift and the act of giving have nothing at all to do with our merit or innate quality (Romans 4:4; 11:5-6; 2 Timothy 1:9-10).

In fact, the Bible says quite clearly that we don’t deserve God’s salvation. Romans 5:810 says, God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. . . . While we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son.

The gift of grace is not something we deserve to get.  Grace is not something that we are entitled to.

It is truly a gift from the good Lord, and we need to be thankful for his grace every second of every day.

ACTION

Here is how you can take action RIGHT NOW!

  1. Pray. When you pray thank God for his grace and the sacrifices, he made to give us the gift of grace.
  2. Give grace to others. Remember grace is a gift, one that we can freely give. So, give it to everyone.  When someone cuts in line in front of you. Give them grace (not the bird). When their service is not up to your expectations, share grace with them, instead of rude comments.
  3. Be thankful when some else shares their grace with you. It may not be easy to thank someone for allowing you to go first, or maybe you did not even see them there. It doesn’t matter in your heart to truly be thankful for the opportunities others give you and be thankful for the grace they share with you.

Prayer

 

God, today we come to you with open minds. They are open for you to show us how your change is going to be great for us.  We pray that help gives us the push to go where you need us to and do what you need us to do.

Lord, we know that you are amazing and that you need us to embrace change because it is constant. And that’s a GREAT thing. Lord, today we pray that you help us embrace CHANGE.

Amen

 

A Little More

 Grace comes when you least expect it.

Over the past few years, I have been recording more and more videos of myself giving some sort of message to our followers.

On one of our trips to the redwoods (if you have never been load up the car and head out there NOW. they are absolutely amazing to see), I was recording some.

Then Nathen came up behind me and started messing around.

At first, I got a little upset with him.

What are you doing Nathen? You know this is important to me! And I try hard to make these GOOD.

You can watch what happened here https://youtu.be/qinYHV1wzvQ

The point is that I had 2 options,

  1. Stay upset and grump for a while.

Or

  1. Get over it, except that he is a good kid, and embrace what just happened.

Number 1 is by far the more satisfying way to react.

Wouldn’t you agree? Just kidding.

Number 2 is how we react with grace. We accept that it happens for a reason, then we use that reason to build.

There are so many other stories I could tell about others treating me with grace throughout my life.

The big point here is that reaction with Grace is choice.

One that God makes every day and so do we.

Next time some aggravate you think is this really worth getting upset over?

Will it affect me in 5 min or 5 years? If the answer to either is no then don’t get upset. Act with grace.

 

 

Will you pray with us?

Mankind throughout the world throughout our current situation

All Law enforcement and emergency response personnel

For all military personal serving our country and their families

Those in Leadership positions throughout the world