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’s when you help your neighbor fix their car because they don’t 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 5:8–10 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’s how you can take action RIGHT NOW!
- Pray. When you pray thank God for his grace and the sacrifices, he made to give us the gift of grace.
- 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.
- 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 didn’t 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
Lord, God, father in heaven today we come to you with open hearts, minds, hands, eyes, and bodies. Simply to say thank you. Thank you for the sacrifices you have made for us so that we might be able to share in your grace. Thank you for every ounce of grace that you have poured out onto us and into this world. If we could measure the grace you have given to us, I’m sure that it would fill up the heavens and earth. God, you are so generous, and we don’t even see it. You treat us so great, and we don’t stop and say thank you enough. You give us such great learning experiences and place such amazing people in our lives, and we forget to share with them our grace. So today God we want to pause our lives, take a deep breath and say THANK YOU. Thank you for your grace. Thank you for every aspect of our lives. Thank you for the sacrifices you and others have made for us. The sacrifices that we never see, the ones that we never think about. Thank you.
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,
- Stay upset and grump for a while.
Or
- 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
Prayer
Lord, today we come to you with HAPPY hearts. We are so grateful that you give us the opportunity to change the lives of those around us. We are grateful that you give us the wisdom to change our lives and the lives of those around us. And you make it so simple. We can do it with a single smile. God today I would ask that you help us to smile more. The next time we see someone down, help us to smile for them. The next time we are down, help us to remember that you gave us the best gift ever. The ability to know you, your son, and the holy spirit. God, we are so grateful for everything you give us.
We ask all these things in your Precious Son's Name
Amen
A Little More
The other day I got a call from one of our clients.
I love talking to our clients so I always smile when I answer the phone.
“Hey Dan, one of my drivers is pulled over and they are saying that our permit doesn’t cover what we weigh. Isn’t that why we hire your team to make sure that these things don’t happen!”
My smile immediately vanished.
I was shocked because my team is amazing. and it’s not like them to miss something like 20,000 lbs on a permit.
So, I asked him, “Who have you been working with, and who was the one who called our team to get the permit?”
To get to the bottom of the problem I needed the details.
They gave me the details.
My next call was to my team. Then after I got the details I got them started on getting new permits to get the problem fixed. I’m a solutions guy, not an excuses guy.
But I NEED to know the real reason why it happened so that we can fix the issue.
My next call was to the driver so that I could see exactly what happened.
I knew he was going to be upset. He was pulled over and they were going to give him a HUGE ticket. I wouldn’t be happy either.
so……
I made sure not to smile when I made the call. I had a serious look on my face. As we chatted I learned that he was the person who gave his weight to our team. I asked where he got the weights from and how in the world they were off by over 20K lbs!
That’s when he told me that he might have gotten the wrong scale ticket from the weigh station where he originally weighed.
Immediately my heart leapt with joy, this is NOT our fault!
Now to get the problem resolved and get this driver back on the road was my only goal. I was not going to assign blame or make anyone feel bad.
Hey, we all make mistakes. I do it multiple times every single day.
The owner of the company shot me a text. I'm getting permits from the big guys. They won’t make these mistakes that cost me time and $$$$$.
No problem. Let me know if you need anything. We are here to help.
Well……..
After they called the “BIG Guys” they called me about 30 minutes later.
Hey, we can’t get an Idaho permit until Monday. It’s Friday night. And we need to drop this load off tomorrow afternoon.
I told him that I would NOT make any promises.
But my team went to work!
Guess what????
We got the permits that the “BIG Guys” couldn’t get.
My team had the Idaho permit in less than 20 minutes. For the right weight this time.
Here’s the point of all this.
When things don’t go right, smile. I have taught my whole team this.
That right there is how we got the permits. They smiled as they worked and it didn’t take any time at all.
Ok, there might be a little knowledge that went into this too. Lol
Next time you need anything DOT, don’t call the “Big Guys” , call the team who can get it done!
Dan Greer