HIS GRACE

His Grace is sufficient for us. Standing back and looking at the things His grace does for us often gives me different emotions, gratitude, amazement, confusion, among others. The first two are somewhat common but the third one is an emotion I recently had while pondering. His grace confuses me when I think of it with earthly logic. When I think of the fact that He (Jesus Christ) saved us so we can come close to Him (God the Father), and that we become close to Him again through His (Holy Spirit) help. So logically, He helped us so He can help us come close to Him. Because ‘logically’, if he left us to figure out our relationship with Him, after He had made the ultimate sacrifice, He would still be counted as a loving father, but He took the extra step to help us with our relationship with Him (through His Grace). This just further describes His love and grace given to us, hence the feeling of gratitude and amazement.

The definition of Grace is God’s unmerited favor towards us. Meaning it is His favor given to us that we did not earn, but was freely gifted. We are not saved by the works of our hands but through our faith in Him, who paid the price for our sins. You see, before the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross for us, the way people knew to be in right standing with God was through the law. But in Romans 4, Paul rightly pointed out that even in the old testament, the time of the father of all nations, Abraham, he was counted as righteous because of the faith he had in God. However Romans 4 also explains that righteousness is not an obligation to faith as wages are an obligation to the labourer. Faith is credited as righteousness (meaning not earned) to those who believe in Jesus. This ‘credited’ act is through His grace. Another thing His grace does is count us righteous through faith.

[4] Now to a laborer, his wages are not credited as a favor or a gift, but as an obligation [something owed to him]. [5] But to the one who does not work [that is, the one who does not try to earn his salvation by doing good], but believes and completely trusts in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited to him as righteousness (right standing with God).

- Romans 4 : 4 - 5 [AMP]

This however does not mean that the law is nullified by faith, the law confirms the righteousness of God (Romans 3:22), this is a deeper topic on its own, the Law and Faith. His grace helps to achieve great things with greater ease than those around us. His grace is freely available to us in all situations. Like earlier explained, in drawing close to Him his grace is needed. When we find it hard to carry out certain spiritual activities, we should know that His grace is there for us. His grace is given to us in all we do, if we look around carefully, we would be able to see it. He’s such a loving Father, He created us, we fell, then He provided us a way to come back to Him, then gave us His spirit to walk us through the way He has provided. He did not stop there, He also helps us in our day to day activities and decision makings here on the earth which He created for us to dwell in. All through His grace.

His grace is freely given, we can not do anything to earn it, it's literally in the definition. However to benefit from the grace of faith credited as righteousness, we have to first believe in (have faith in) His sacrifice to us (His son, Jesus Christ). We have to be saved. This also is a free gift, it entails surrendering our lives to Him and accepting Him as our Saviour. He already did it all, all we have to do is believe in and accept Him. Do this and walk in a great dimension of His grace.