“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:” Ephesians 2:8
Without a proper understanding of what grace means,
why God gave us grace, and how God continually uses grace in our everyday life,
we will never have a proper appreciation to God for His gift of grace. Without
God’s grace toward us, God would have never saved one sinful soul. Sin is an
abomination to God, He hates sin, therefore, the thought must be, how could God
ever save one single soul? After the sin of Adam and the fall of mankind, man became
an abomination to God. God said in the flood of the earth, “And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the
earth…” Gen. 6:6a. The
repenting of God here is the punishment that God was inserting toward mankind.
When God said “…it grieved him at his heart.” it is to show us the
amount of anger that God had toward the sinful sinner. How did God truly feel
about sin, “…the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the
face of the earth…” Gen. 6:7. This anger was not only toward Adam but the
entire human race, we were all condemned. We must understand God’s anger, not
only toward sin but also the sinner. While Noah was a “just man”, he was
also a sinner and had committed the same abomination against God that everyone
else, but “Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.” and it is this
grace that caused Noah to be a just man. God’s repentance is His grace, not
giving some sinners their just due, which is the wrath of God. Any goodness man
has toward God is God’s grace toward us. None of mankind should ever have an
imaginary thought that we are the source of anything good toward God, because
we are not. One of the greatest and most godly men of the New Testament was the
Apostle Paul, but toward the end of his life, after all the good he did he
said, “But by the grace of God I am what I am…” 1 Cor. 15:10a, because
he was unworthy to be who God made him by grace. Paul never forgot his greatest
abomination against God, “For I am the least of the apostles, that am not
meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”
V. 11. Paul was not devaluing his works as a servant of God, he was being
grateful for God’s grace to have elected such an unworthy worm to be what he
was. I believe the greatest blessing to us as Christians is to remind ourselves
of our own sins and to remember the grace that made us what we are as
Christians. I believe, in our time now, many Christians and even churches have
forgotten the true meaning of God’s gift of grace in our life that has made us
what we are. When a believer loses the true meaning of grace, we turn weak
toward God’s grace and gather more pride. We never need pride because a proud
heart is a sinful heart. “An high look, and a proud heart, and the
plowing of the wicked, is sin.” Pro. 21:4. Every good thing we do in
the Lord is by God’s grace, and if we fail to credit God, then we are sinning.
God’s love toward, even a remnant of sinners is a very large gift of grace.
God’s love, even toward one sinner is grace, His dispatching His very own Son,
Jesus Christ to do the acts He did for our redemption is grace. And it goes
deeper, the very act of our spirits being quickened, our believing, our
repentance toward God, and our life and works in the Lord are all God’s
wonderful grace. God elected all of this for us, we are not responsible for our
Christian life no more than the Apostle Paul was. However, many of us, maybe even
all of us at some point have wasted God’s grace. Paul wrote “…his grace
which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly
than they all…” meaning that some had “wasted” God’s grace by making it
“void” or empty. When a believer forgets what grace means, when they grow
hardened to God’s grace and stop pleasing the Lord, stop serving God “according
to the scriptures”, then they have wasted God’s grace. And on the other
hand, when a believer forgets to remember God’s grace in their life and starts
thinking that “they” have risen and accomplished much, then they also have wasted
God’s grace. The Apostle Paul never forgot nor wasted grace, “…yet not I,
but the grace of God which was with me.” Our remembering God’s grace is
what make our walk in the Lord stronger, more upright, and more rewarding.
