Infinite Matchless Grace

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:8–10 ESV)

“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.””  (Lamentations 3:22–24 ESV)

We are saved by grace, not by works.  It is only grace that could save us. We could never possibly pay the penalty for our sins, the payment is too large for our meager resources. Jesus gave himself to be our redemption.  We come to experience this Grace by a special work of the Spirit in our lives.  It is all of God.  Salvation does not build up our self-esteem, it transfers all our hope to Jesus Christ.  We are justified in him. In him there is no condemnation. We will never be in a state of self-security. We will never be in a state where we are no longer dependent completely on his mercy. Psalm 103 :10 is always true: “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.”

We live dependent lives. We are dependent on God’s great mercy and grace. We depend on his commitment to keeping his promise to love us always. Let us grow comfortable leaning on the everlasting arms!  Be reminded that “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning…” We always depend on his grace, never our performance.

Recently I had the privilege of doing the high-ropes course at Mount Hermon. The entire time you are on the course you are double tied into the safety cable.  You cannot fall. You do your best to make it through the challenges, but ultimately your security does not depend on you at all. Your safety depends on the hefty safety cable system. This reminds me of God’s grace.  When all is said and done, he alone saves us, and our security totally depends on his strength and faithfulness. There was not one moment on that course where I was depending on my effort to be safe. There is not one moment in our lives when we should be comfortable in our efforts, our performance; we happily are dependent on Christ alone. 

Who’s In Charge Around Here?

Psalm 127:1 Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.

Matthew 16:18 …on this rock I will build my church,

      and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Acts 2:47 “And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”

1 Peter 2:5 “you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

It is so important to understand that the church is God’s building! We depend upon the Lord to build his church.  We are called to faithful and thoughtful labor, but we depend upon the Lord’s work to make it all happen.  Day by day we ought to be his workers in the field but we depend upon the Lord of the harvest to actually produce the fruit! 

We live next to strawberry fields.  It is fascinating to watch the farmers doing many things to take care of the plants. But all their labor is only supportive of the amazing miracle that occurs when this small green plant produces marvelous red berries.  As the old child’s song might have said, “Oh who can make a berry? I’m sure I can’t can you?”  Only God makes berries!

This is very reassuring for us.  In a way, when it comes to spiritual work, we are called to participate in something that we really cannot do on our own.  The Almighty Father must do the heavy lifting.  We pray that God will work deeply in people and we must trust him for the outcome.

To apply this directly to our local church, it is always the best to be reminded that this is the Church of Jesus Christ. We are clearly called to work hard for him, and to be faithful in the service to which he has called us, but we must always fully depend on him for the results. Our trust in him is demonstrated by our obedience to him.  He calls us to love people, preach and teach the Word, and pray without ceasing.  Remember the Word “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.”  (1 Corinthians 3:6–7 ESV). Since God gives the growth we are nothing!  It is so good to be nothing while God is everything!

This also applies to individuals we love.  You may be in a family where people you love are not saved. There simply is no way for us to reach into that person and turn on faith.  There is no way for us to cause them to experience true conviction of sin and then to move into profound repentance and conversion.  Only God can do to this sort of open-heart surgery.  So, what should we do?  We are called to lovingly present God’s word to them and pray pray pray!