Encouragement
This final quarter of 2009 we focus on the most blessed attribute of God – GRACE! God’s HOLINESS requires us to be holy lest we incur His fearful wrath. But His GRACE turns fearing God into loving Him. It offers us a second chance to be righteous in God’s eyes. Romans 3:22-25, “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” Ephesians 2:4-5, “Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved.”
Why should God love us so? He should not, except that Grace is in His nature. Who can understand, let alone explain, His favor toward us? We wayward sinners deserve his awful wrath, but instead He shows us His mercy and compassion (Exodus 33:18-19). Grace comes purely as His gift of love (John 3:16). It cannot be bought, earned, or won (Ephesians 2:8-9). It came to us even before we asked or desired it (Romans 5:8). All we can do is marvel at it and thankfully accept it as God’s gift. I John 4:9-10, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
Why should God sacrifice His only Son for us? God’s holiness required sin to be judged. His grace offered the atoning sacrifice to satisfy that judgment. Only His own Son Jesus was the perfect Lamb of God able to die in our place. II Corinthians 5:21, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” The word GRACE fittingly forms this acrostic –
God’s Righteousness At Christ’s Expense
Why should God save us? This also is beyond comprehension. God’s grace gives us not just what we don’t deserve, but the exact opposite of what we do deserve. We deserve condemnation, but get salvation. We deserve death and hell, but get life and heaven. This is why in our private moments of honest self-examination we find one song arising from the depths of our being: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me!”
This gives us reason for encouragement! Our discouraged heads can look up. Through Christ’s atoning death our banishment from God’s presence has been removed (Romans 5:1-2). The flaming sword that kept mankind from returning to Eden’s Paradise has been withdrawn. The tree of life is available to us once again (Revelation 22:14). All because of God’s grace! Our acceptance of His grace transforms fear of God into compelling love for God.
During October we invite you to be encouraged and to encourage others with the Gospel of Grace.