The grace of God

Many people think it is by faith that a person is saved, yet Ephesians 2: 8 states otherwise. It actually states: “It is by grace (God’s) you have been saved, through faith. It is not yourselves,it is the gift of God.” One’s faith must be preceded by God’s grace. What then is God’s grace? grace is the unmerited gift of God to sinful mortal man. grace was clearly seen when God sent His Son, who was without sin, to the cross to die for the sins of mortal man: past, present, and future generations. God saved us by his grace when we believed. We can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 

The word grace is used in the New Testament over 170 times. According to Webster’s dictionary, grace is the unmerited favor of God toward sinful mankind. It also is the free gift of Almighty God to sinners.  When we envision Jesus dying on the cross, we clearly see the free gift of God’s grace. 

The famous invitational hymn “Amazing Grace” goes like this: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I was lost, but now am found. I was blind, but now I see.” This song aptly describes the grace of God in action. 

Grace is not sought nor bought.  It is the free gift of God to sinful man.  When we picture Jesus Christ dying on the cross, we see the free gift of God’s grace in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. 

The first thing a vile sin does is to create a feeling of estrangement between ourselves and God. Whenever a man realizes he has sinned, he is obsessed with the feeling that he must not approach God. When Isaiah received his vision of God, his first reaction was to say: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6: 5). 

The story is told of an aged riverboat engineer. His boat was antiquated, and he did not worry about its grimy equipment and ill-cared for engines. After being converted, the first thing the engineer did was to polish its engines and equipment until every part of the machinery shinned brilliantly. When a passenger asked the engineer, “What caused you to polish those old engines?” The first thing the engineer said was: “I got inspiration.”  That is what Christ does. He gives us inspiration.

There is no way that mortal man can earn salvation. It is only by God’s gift of grace that salvation is possible. A good example is a motorist, who by careless driving, kills a child. He is arrested, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. After serving his sentence, the man is released and the law considered the whole matter resolved. But it is very different for the grieving mother whose child was killed. The man can never put things right with her. The only way the man can cope with this is for the mother to forgive him. That’s the way it is with God: it is against His heart, and it is only by an act of God’s forgiveness that man can be put back into a relationship with Him. Good deeds, regardless how many, can never repair man’s relationship with God. 

The Apostle Paul does not want anyone to think salvation is based on something they had done, or could ever do. No action is good enough to provide our own salvation. No good deeds can undo the sins we have committed. Salvation is a gift. Furthermore, it is a gift only God can provide. I close by repeating Ephesians 2: 8: “For it is by grace, you have been saved through faith.”