The Grace of God
8 For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 it is not from works, so that no one can boast.
Ephesians 2:8,9 NET Bible
Many of us see Jesus as the Golden Ticket out of Hell and the Grace of God as a magical shield/blank cheque that allows us to live however we want. The Grace of God is amazing and so we sing about Amazing Grace!
But the Grace of God only really works for those that are actively pursuing a relationship with Jesus, it’s not just a word you can invoke where it acts as a spell or a rule. Much like the word, “parley” it’s more of a guideline. Just because you prayed the sinner’s prayer once back in grade school or you “accepted” Jesus into your heart at a retreat or a conference, doesn’t necessarily mean you are in a relationship with Jesus.
The promise is that simple, but the practical implication can be a bit more complicated. What Jesus has done for us on the cross isn’t as simple as us having had a flat tire and Jesus came to fix a flat, where we can thank Him profusely and move on with our lives. Accepting Jesus as our Lord and Saviour is actually more of a trade: our old self-centred selfish life for a Christ-centred new life. Jesus literally gets to have the say over our lives. He gets to tell us where to go, what to do, and how we should get on with our lives.
This is where many of us get stuck. We forget that there are conditions in any agreement or covenant, and we fail to hold up our side of the bargain. This can lead to the whole thing being nullified. Thank God that He isn’t so quick to cash in the cheque on us! Thank God that He loves us so much that He is in this season being patient with so many of us.
Looking at the passage up top, we need to remember that the Grace of God is a gift of God towards us as much as our salvation is a gift. The point of it is that we are being called back into a loving relationship with God. Following Jesus is not a religion, a cause, a lifestyle, or anything else we want to call it other than love. With the free gift of salvation, Jesus is literally asking us, “Will you marry me?”
We don’t ever need to worry about God’s love for us because He has proven it through Jesus and continues to show His love for us everyday. In fact, remember that He’s the one who loved us first and decided to call us friends while we were still His enemies. What we need to focus on is whether we are genuinely loving God.
Our love of God is very much like our relationship with any other person with whom we are in love. Our relationship with God also requires investing of our time, energy, attention, money, and more. Is your devotional life a reflection of your love of God? Is it love or duty? Is it love or a religious thing to do?
When we are in love with God, the grace of God covers all of our failures and falls because it’s not about how successful we were in our endeavours to love Him, only that we love Him. So for those that love God and are struggling, keep loving God. He won’t ever let you go and His grace covers you. For those that are keeping it religious or dutiful be careful because you may be used of God, but are not really known by Him.